Athens, Nebraska
by mcdermarie
Summary: In a small town, everyone suddenly begins to speak ancient Greek. Scully and Mulder are called to investigate.
1. Chapter 1

_Year: 1999_

1.

Scully heard Mulder humming along to the Joni Mitchell song and, keeping her eyes shut, imagined his head bobbing gently. They had been driving for hours through the corn fields of Iowa, and then Nebraska. She could tell that she had been asleep for a while – that it was time to stretch and regroup with Mulder about the case – but she didn't want to move. Mulder had the heat blowing and his voice sounded low and soft, in harmony with the music.

He was in a good mood. The case seemed to defy any sort of grotesque, rational logic. The entire town of Athens, Nebraska, had started speaking ancient Greek. Only a visiting professor from the University of Oklahoma – James Wang – could communicate with the locals, who didn't seem to realize that this language shift was internal.

"Everyone from outside the town is suddenly an intrusive immigrant," Wang had reported to the FBI. "Outsiders are foreigners, threatening to bombard the town's history and culture. I am barely tolerated." His case notes further warned that the townsfolk wanted to blockade the entry and exist roads, effectively boxing themselves in from the outside world. "They keep asking me why all these aliens are passing through. They think it has to do with the interstate, even though it's been there for fifty years," Wang had written.

"A new kind of alien for you there," Scully had said after reading the report and dropping it onto Mulder's desk.

"When can you leave?" Mulder had asked. Scully had raised her eyebrows.

They had argued over theories on time warps – Mulder's first thought – for the first few hours of their drive from the Omaha airport. Athens was in the state's northwest region, a tiny dot among an empty tan block on the map.

She let her eyes flutter open. Red dusk hit the dusty prairie outside.

"Hey sleepy," Mulder said. He glanced at her and grinned, before returning his eyes to the road. "We're almost there."

Scully scooted up in her seat. "Where are we meeting the professor again?"

"He told us to meet him at the trucking depo outside town."

She looked outside. "Man, there's really nothing out here, is there?"

Mulder laughed. "In the 1850s giant clouds of insects swarmed across this land. They ate the clothing off struggling farmers."

Scully laughed. "Where'd you learn that?" she asked.

"Laura Engel Wilder's biography," Mulder said.

She laughed again. "I never would have pegged you for a _Little House on the Prairie _fan," she said.

Mulder shrugged. "What can I say? Gender roles don't define me." On the horizon, a long, grey pole support a sign that said 'Mobile' at its top in blue letters. "Looks like it's our stop," he said.

Scully squinted. "It looks abandoned."

"No. Look there." Mulder pointed. A green Chevy caprice was parked in the corner of the depo's parking lot. They pulled up to it.

A tall man with dirty khakis and a trench coat was leaning on the car. He sprung up and waved at them as Mulder parked a few yards from him.

"Agents' Mulder and Scully?" Professor Wang said as Scully opened the door. The cold air rushed in toward her.

"Present!" Mulder tugged his badge out of his pocket and showed Wang.

The professor did not wait for Scully to show her badge. "Shh." He scuttled up to them. "It's a sincerely pleasure to meet you. May I ask you keep your voices down? I don't want to take any chances."

Wang hand mentioned that the townspeople were agitated, but she did not think they were lurking around the remote truck spot. "You said you would escort us to the motel. Should we follow you in your car?"

"Actually, I was hoping I might drive you. Your car will be safe parked around the back of the gas station, and that way we can cause the least amount of attention as possible."

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances. "We would really rather have our own means of transportation to investigate," Scully said.

Professor Wang looked uncomfortable. "I-I'm afraid the more townspeople know that outsiders are staying at the hotel, the more hostile they might become."

Wind whipped across the prairie. Scully heard a high shriek somewhere in the distance.

"Why don't we drive you? We'll all be working together, and then agent Scully and I can ensure we do not forget any of our tools or forgo our protocol." Mulders said. He took a step towards their government Ford.

Professor Wang's face looked red and his jaw set. "Umm. Well. I-I…"

"No one will notice a slightly different in this darkness." Mulder unlocked the Ford's door.

"T-they…"

"Please, Professor Wang. We can either drive or follow you."

Professor Wang glanced at his car again. "Okay. Please follow me closely. And keep your headlights off."


	2. Chapter 2

2.

"Did he seem strange to you?" Scully said. Darkness seemed to press on the windows of the car, with only a few feeble streetlights forcing it to lean back and reveal the town.

"He's scared," Mulder said. "Scared of this town, maybe scared of us. We're gonna find out."

"I just can't help feeling…" Scully bit her lip.

"Yeah?"

"That we're walking into a trap," she said. "Why would he want us to leave our car?"

Mulder reached across the seats and grabbed her hand. "We've always been pretty good at springing traps. Besides, he might be in earnest. We'll know more in the morning."

Scully smiled. In front of them, Wang's car slowed. The back window was caught in the red glow of a large motel sign. Wang parked in the glow of the sign. Mulder pulled up next to him.

"This way." Wang lead them to the motel's side door. He dug a key out of his pocket and said, "I've already secured you two rooms next to one another." He opened the door. They stepped into the dark hallway, lit only at its ends with dusty floor lamps. We-we can discuss the situation in the morning. Don't worry about breakfast. I can bring food to you." He handed them each a key.

"Thank you, Professor," Mulder said. "Don't bother with breakfast. I imagine we can…"

Professor Wang put up his hands. "Please don't. I…I can just prep you and then you'll know what you are walking in to."


	3. Chapter 3

3.

Scully had just finished washing her face and teeth when she heard Mulder's soft knock on her door. She opened it and peaked out at him. He smiled at her. He was wearing his grey Georgetown sweats. Without speaking, they interlaced their fingers and walked to the double bed. Mulder crawled in first, detaching his fingers at the last moment. She followed him, scooting into his arms.

"Why ancient Greek? Why not something practical, like Spanish?" Mulder whispered in her ear as Scully settled herself on the mattress.

"Mulder, when are the X-files practical?"

Mulder grunted. He stroked her shoulder. Scully smiled. She loved these little moments in their trips. She could hardly a remember a time when she wasn't with Mulder. Being _with _Mulder felt as natural as breathing. She remembered exactly when the final barrier of propriety fell – when Mulder had kissed her and she had wrapped her legs around his waist on Halloween five months ago. But that day – it felt like an age.

"You know," Mulder whispered. "Skinner is getting suspicious."

"It's took him long enough. For an FBI director he isn't the most perceptive."

"Well half the department thinks we've been sleeping together for years. He knew better for a long time. He probably thinks he still does."

Scully hummed.

"So should we tell him?" Mulder said.

She was quiet.

"I know you're awake."

Scully sighed. "I don't see why we need to," she said.

Mulder leaned back and gently tug her shoulder. She tensed, and then yielded, spinning around to look at him.

"You don't want him to know," he said.

"It's against the rules. There could be consequences."

"You know he wouldn't split us up at work."

Scully bit her lip.

"What's the problem?" She saw Mulder's brown eyes dilate and studied the curve of skin around his lip.

"Can we please talk about this later?" Scully whispered.

Mulder kissed her. Moments later, he rolled over and nestled his head into the pillow. Scully waited a moment, before gently tugging at his arm and wrapping it around her. Only then did his breathing become slow and heavy.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Scully heard a swift knock. What was wrong with the car? She and Mulder were driving to the beach. Their back seat was full of towels. She heard the knock again – louder this time. She opened her eyes. They were still in bed in the little motel. She slid her legs out from in-between Mulder's.

Mulder grunted and reached out his arm as she sat up. "What is it?"

"Shh," Scully said. She grabbed pajamas from her bag and slid them on and looked at Mulder. He propped himself up with his elbows, and the blanket slid down his bare torso. Scully raised her eyebrows. She padded over to the door and cracked it open.

"Agent Scully?" Professor Wang's face peered in at her through the crack. "May I come in?"

Scully threw a glance back at Mulder but did not see him. She drew the door back.

Professor Wang stepped into the room. "Agent Mulder!" Scully turned around. There was Mulder, wearing his sweats and standing in the bathroom doorway. "I-I'm glad to see you. I knocked on your door first."

"Scully and I were just reviewing a few case notes earlier this morning," Mulder said.

Wang looked back and forth between Mulder and Scully and nodded. "Oh of course. I have some more news on it – the case."

"Wonderful," Scully said. She gestured toward the little brown desk in the corner of the room. They walked over to it, and Scully pulled out the chair for him.

Professor Wang sat in the chair, leaving Scully to perch at the edge of the bed. Mulder remained in the bathroom doorway. "The situation here is tumultuous. With the language barrier comes rapid xenophobia. Presently, a group of Athenians are planning to block the main roadway in and out of the city at around three am this morning."

Scully groaned. "Should we call in backup?"

"We may need to," Wang said.

"First, let's try to find the root of the problem. It will be harder to engage with these people with SWAT teams marching around."

"What do you think it is?" Scully asked.

"Collective amnesia? Mass hypnotism?"

"There are mob mentalities. I can even recall reading about a few communities where large swaths of people latched on to conspiracy theories. But language? I don't know." She turned to Wang. "Professor, how much do you know about language acquisition?"

"Language acquisition? It's not really my area. I study Greek." Professor Wang sat forward on his chair. "I have had some fascinating conversations with the chair of the linguistics department at the university. He might be able to help. I'm sure he'd be interested."

"Great," Mulder walked over to the phone on the desk where Wang sitting. He picked up the receiver and handed it to him. "We'll give you some privacy." He started to walk to the door. "Scully?"

Scully followed, hugging herself, and wishing Mulder and consulted her about getting dressed before they gave the room to the professor.

Mulder closed the door and turned to Scully. "Does he seem strange to you?"

Scully nodded. "Nervous."

Mulder nodded. Then, he cleared his throat. "Sorry about throwing you out of your room, there." He grinned. "Want to do something fun while we wait in mine?"

"He already has ideas after he found you in my bathroom," Scully said.

Shrugging, Mulder took her hand and pretended to scan the hallway. "Let him have ideas," he said, taking a step closer.

Scully grinned and pressed herself flush against him. Suddenly, they heard Professor Wang's voice through the door. "Thank you!"

"So much for speaking quietly," she murmured, slowing stepping away from Mulder.

Professor Wang opened her door and waved them back into the room.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

"We've got him!" Professor Wang clasped his hands together and grinned.

"When will he get here?" Mulder asked.

"Tonight. At dusk. I said we could meet them at the truck depot."

"Great. In the meantime, Scully and I'll look around the town. I'll go get dressed."

Professor Wang's eyes widened. "But…"

Mulder already had his back turned to him and was walking out the door. "You are welcome to come too, of course."

For three hours, Mulder, Scully and Wang explored the town. They drove up and down main two streets town with the windows down. They parked at various one-story shops with shrubs, flowers and park benches decorating their outsides. Occasionally, Mulder and Scully strolled down the street, leaving Wang fidgeting in the back seat.

The townspeople looked ordinary enough – a little overweight and wearing fashion ten-years out of date, but ordinary all the same. When a local spoke, though, whether calling to a friend or chastising a toddler in a stroller or talking quickly with a spouse, Scully felt like their language was everywhere. One phrase blended into the next: smooth vowels and soft, rounded consonants. They did not sound confused or look hypnotized.

After an hour, she noticed several loose-leaf papers in the windows. On them were strange letters. The corner store's neon open sign was turned off. Scully wondered what they thought of the English on their things, in their books, in the instruction manuals sitting in the junk draws of their homes. She tugged on Mulder's sleeve. He leaned down so she could whisper in his ear. "What about the library?"

They shuffled back to the car and Mulder climbed in the driver's seat. "Professor," he asked, "have you located the library?"

The Professor paused for a moment, and then nodded. "Just up the road, to your right."

Mulder started the car. He pulled up alongside an old, brick building set back from the street. Its windows were dark.

Scully unbuckled her seatbelt, stepped outside and strode to the front door. She gave the handle a quick tug. Locked, as she expected. She peered through the nearest window. Inside, books were stacked in several piles. It looked like something was on the top of the piles – white paper. She squinted: strange notes marked the stacks.

"It looks like someone is organizing them," she said when she returned to the car. "I don't know what the notes say, though. Professor Wang, maybe you could take a look?"

"I can ask for the building key, but I don't know if they will let me inside," Professor Wang said. "But if you go back to the motel maybe I can try to get inside."

"I'm starving," Mulder said. "Let's get something to eat." Before Professor Wang could open his mouth, Mulder raised his hand. "I know. We won't say anything. But if you could just order us a sandwich, I promise your friend Uncle Sam will compensate you for the meal."

"Alright. There's a diner two blocks down."

As they approached, they looked into the diner from two big windows. Scully saw a teal green counter with red seats. Throngs of people were inside, chatting.

Mulder glanced at Scully. "Ready?" He whispered.

Scully nodded. They left the car and Mulder swung open the restaurant door. A waft of French fry-smell welcomed them. At the counter, two men were eating hamburgers. Three women were sitting in a booth with salads. The picture of Americana paused before her. She heard Professor Wang swallow. He strode up to the counter.

"ἄρτος, ἁνδάνω. ἀφίημι," Professor Wang said and then coughed, as if the words hurt him.

The man behind the counter nodded slowly. "ἀριθμέω?"

"Θρινακίη." Wang's accent sounded flat – like an American reading gibberish.

The man nodded again. He pointed to the end of the counter. "ἔκτοτε."

Scully began to walk down to the end of the counter. She could feel the men eating hamburgers watching her body – her head and her hips and her legs. She felt Mulder's light touch on her shoulder as he strode up beside her.

The hamburger men were looking at her and smiling – not hungry smiles, as she had feared, but curious ones. "ἀσπάζομαι," a man on her right said.

Scully smiled and nodded. The man stood up.

Suddenly, Professor Wang stood in front of her. "ἀσπάζομαι." He grabbed Scully's shoulder and guided her to the back of the restaurant.

Scully ducked out of his grip and glared at him.

The man behind the counter rang a bell and placed three sandwiches wrapped in wax paper on it. Before Wang could stop him, Mulder strode up to the counter, grabbed them, nodded at the man and gave him a thumbs-up.


	6. Chapter 6

The sky looked crinkled with stars. Scully hugged her elbows and rocked on her heels. Beside her, Mulder checked his watch. Professor Wang stood a few feet in front of them, peering into the darkness.

Professor Wang's arm shot up. He waved it around. Two streams of light appeared on the distant road parallel to them, Scully leaned against the car. The lights turned and shone toward them, growing brighter like stars about to explode. The car stopped in front of Wang. Three figures emerged from inside of it.

She held up a flashlight toward them. An old man wearing an argyle sweater stepped out of the driver's seat.

"Wang!" Professor Ruth called.

Professor Wang scuttled toward him and clasped his hand. "It's so good of you to come. The phenomenon is bizarre. An entire town suddenly turned to ancient Greek. Corinthian, 4000 BCE. I…"

"Fascinating!" Ruth said. "And who are these two fine officers?"

"Agents, actually." Mulder held out his hand. "Agent Mulder, FBI. This is my partner, Agent Scully." They shook.

"A pleasure!" Ruth smiled. Scully thought that he looked like a merry Santa Claus. "I've brought along a couple of my best and brightest." He turned and beckoned to the two students behind him. "Mr. Turbell. I'm advising his dissertation on Juhuri syntax. And Ms. Matsouka specializes in Greek phonetics and its history." The young woman nodded.

"What is your expertise, Professor?" Mulder asked.

"Indo-European syntax reconstruction."

"An authority in his field," Professor Wang said.

Mulder raised his eyes and glanced at Scully.

Scully cleared her throat. "We want to know how ancient Greek has been acquired and why. Do you think you can help us?"

"In good time," Professor Ruth boomed.

_Later_

"I don't know what that man studies, but I can't imagine how it's going to help us," Mulder said.

Scully spat out her toothpaste in the bathroom sink. "I don't know either, Mulder. It doesn't sound like the most useful skill set for our problem." She climbed into bed next to him.

"I guess we'll find out in the morning," Mulder leaned back on the pillow, shut his eyes, and sighed.

"It was beautiful, though."

"What?"

"The sound of the Greek. At least, I thought so."

"Yeah. I thought so too."


	7. Chapter 7

Scully drummed her fingers on the desk in her motel room. Mulder stood next to her. Wang was rocking on his heels by the front door. The two grad students – Terbell and Matsouka stood with their hands in their pockets, both staring down at the carpet.

"Did Professor Santa somehow manage to get lost while training his reindeer?" Mulder whispered.

A sharp knock rapped on the door. Professor Wang sprang up and hurried to the door. Professor Ruth strode in.

"Sorry about that!" Ruth said. "I always start my morning with a meditation and today too a bit longer. You know how it is – finishing things."

"Mmm." Scully motioned for Ruth to take a seat in the desk chair. "Sorry about the cramped quarters. Professor Wang has informed us that some of the townsfolk are alarmed by outsiders – especially those who speak English."

Professor Ruth sat down. "So, have you come up with a method for interaction that we can use?"

"We are hoping you might take the morning to observe," Mulder said.

Scully and Mulder had woken up early in order to discuss what to do, now that the professor had arrived. They had already dwindled a day observing, but they could think of nothing else which might allow the linguists to help without interacting with the townspeople. Scully had thought Wang would be reluctant to accompany the linguists, but he had seemed excited by the idea when the presented it to him just before the meeting.

"Then, we can meet back here and discuss what to do." Scully said.

"What do you want us to look for?" Motsouka asked from the corner of the room. She was pulling a mass of wavy dark hair into a ponytail.

"We want to know about the language's acquisition – how it's being passed from parent to child."

"There's a park in the town's center," Mulder said. "That might be a good place to start observing. Or, there's the downtown strip."

"I don't mean any harm, but why were we called? None of us specialize in language acquisition." Motsouka was looking at Professor Wang.

Before Professor Wang could respond, Professor Ruth laughed. "Never mind that. We're here now. Make sure you record out there, okay? You should transcribe what you hear, too." He cleared his throat. "I imagine you agents are accompanying us."

"Well, actually…"

"Oh please do!" Wang said. "It will help us all feel more safe."

Scully met Mulder's eyes. He was frowning, but he nodded. "Fine," she said.

"Wonderful," Ruth rubbed his hands together as if that matter had been resolved. "I think it might be best, Motsouka, if you and agent Scully went to the park to listen to the children. It's not exactly the most normal environment for four professional men in the middle of a workday."

Scully opened her mouth to protest. She was in a pantsuit – it wasn't exactly the most natural place for her either. Then again, the best chance they had to learn about acquisition was from parents and children. "Fine."

"What do you expect us to do?" Mulder asked.

"Why don't we try to find someone who is willing to talk to us? Professor Wang can help," Ruth said.

Professor Wang was studying is fingers. "I don't know if…well I suppose we can feel out the situation as we go."

"And we'll meet back here this afternoon. Perfect."


	8. Chapter 8

Motsouka fiddled with a flat black recorder. It was about two inches thick and a little larger than Scully's cell phone. A cylindrical microphone was attached to the recorder by a long, flat wire.

"Will you be able to record through your backpack?" Scully asked.

The young woman shook her head. "I've been trying to work around how to record since Professor Ruth told us to. But it's a lot easier to record one person than try and collect snippets of conversation." She sighed. "Plus, I don't know how helpful observing children is going to be."

"From what I remember reading in medical school, mistakes made during language acquisition reveal the inconsistent rules in the language."

"They do." Motsouka stuffed the recorder into her backpack. "But so what? How can we fix this phenomenon from knowing about the acquisition of ancient Greek? I mean, it's amazing to compare to modern Greek. But I don't know how it's going to help."

"Agent Mulder and I were hoping that it isn't acquired other languages."

Motsouka turned. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Scully leaned back a little in her seat. Motsouka liked facts – Scully could relate. She wasn't sure how well she would receive a hypothesis of mass hypnotism. "Well it seemed to spring up unnaturally. Maybe its acquisition is unnatural, too."

"Huh. That's clever," Motsouka said. "They should have sent Aldridge."

"Who?"

"Rose Aldridge. She's…a friend of mine. She studies language acquisition in children. She could have been a lot more helpful than the rest of us."

Scully nodded. "You do study Greek, right?"

"Modern Greek. Greek phonetics. I might be able to tell you how similar the speech here is to modern Greek. But I don't know if I can tell you much on how people are learning it."

"And Professor Ruth? Mr. Terbell? Will they have any insights?"

Motsouka laughed. She opened her mouth but then shut it and shrugged. She pointed to a wide green lawn ahead of them. "It looks like we're here."

Scully turned right into a parking lot just beside the playground. She saw a few mothers wearing light jackets on the benches that faced the structure. The spring air had a bite today, like it hadn't quite decided to lapse into summer. "Ready?" She asked Motsouka.

Motsouka pressed a button on her black recorder and ran the microphone wire through her coat sleeve so that it hung below her palm. She nodded.

They clambered out of the car and started to walk toward the playground. Scully saw a bulletin board and a path to their right and pointed at it. They approached it. Scraps of printer paper with Greek letters were tacked in clumsy arrays ."Does any of this look familiar?" Scully asked.

Motsouka shook her head. "Some of the letters do, of course. But I can't really read the words. I could try to translate them." She walked forward and ripped a sign from the board.

A child wailed from the playground. Scully saw a cluster of children surrounding the bottom of the slide. Four women and two men had stood up from their seats on the park benches and were walking toward the cluster. The first woman to reach the slide gasped. "Hold on a minute," Scully said. She jogged toward the group.

A boy was sprawled out on the side, screaming. Scully pushed herself into the back row of the group. The boys' leg ankle was twisted completely perpendicular to his other leg. Blood was puddling at the yellow slide's base. Scully stepped forward at the same time as a tall blond woman who tried to scoop the boy in her arms. The boy shrieked.

"Doctor!" She said, grabbing hold of a woman's shoulder. She forced her way to the boys' side. The group stared at her. They looked confused. Scully felt hot. Her heartbeat drummed her in her chest.

"Γιατρός," Motsouka called from the crowd, pushing through the adults. "Giatrós."

The group started at Motsouka and then again at Scully. The boy moaned. He was still at the base of the slide. They parted.

Scully tugged off her thin black scarf. The joint was badly swollen, but she did not see an open fracture. Deftly, she lifted the boy's leg and wrapped the scarf around his bleeding wound. The boy whimpered. Then, she stood up and handed her cell phone to the blond woman, biting her lip. _Please call for help, _she willed the woman.

The woman did not hesitate. She punched the phone's buttons and held it to her ear. She almost shouted into the phone, one rapid-fire syllable after another. Scully saw that she had started to cry. Nodding once, and then twice, she hung up and handed the phone back to Scully, bowing a little and saying something that came out strained and garbled. Scully nodded back and smiled. The boy whimpered and clutched his mother's hand.

Then, the woman said something to the crowd and two men lifted the boy slowly. The crowd swarmed around Scully as they headed to the parking lot. Scully and Motsouka followed. Stopping at a red corolla, the woman opened the backseat and the two men slowly placed the boy inside. Adults clutched their children's hands. The mother smiled and deflected. She opened the driver door. Before climbing in, she looked directly at Scully. "χάpίν εχεlυ." Her voice lilted at the end of the phrase.

Scully smiled and nodded. She was fairly sure the woman was thanking her. She smiled and nodded back.


	9. Chapter 9

"They didn't seem hostile to me." Scully buckled her seatbelt. The crowd had broken up shortly after the woman and her injured son had left. The two women had walked twice around the parking before deciding to return to the motel.

"Did you notice the woman could type the phone number?" Motsouka asked, examining her fingernails.

Scully nodded. "So?"  
"So the whole town hasn't completely resorted to ancient Greek. Our number system is based off the Arabic system. Ancient Greece used different symbols."

"Do you think their Greek is somehow like English?

"Possibly. I got a few examples of recorded speech. I'll analyze them tonight. I want to see if they're close to English syntax." Motsouka cracked her knuckles. "That was really impressive, by the way."

"I probably should have erred on the side of caution and not gotten involved."

Motsouka shrugged. "Professor Ruth is right that it's gonna be hard to figure out what's going on if we can't interact with anyone."

XXX

They agreed to explore the check-in building on arrive back at the motel for no reason other than to know what it looked like. The townspeople at the park weren't eager to chop their heads off. Scully figured the front door clerk would also be safe.

Dark, green carpet ran across the lobby floor. The empty front desk was tall and made of wood, with a black counter. Two aging vending machines collected dust in the back corner.

"Looks like Americana to me," Motsouka muttered.

Suddenly, a man sprang up behind the front desk. He had white-blond hair and green eyes. He said something to them in rapid Greek. Scully and Motsouka smiled and nodded. The man said something again and Scully nudged Motsouka.

"Eímaste entáxei," she said.

The man looked confused. "H-help?" he said, pronouncing each letter carefully.

The English seemed like a far-off star Scully was observing in the sky – almost tangible. She shook her head, remembering the park mother's words. She took a deep breath. "x- χ άpίf εxεlv." The man grinned and laughed. Then, he nodded.

Motsouka and Scully left the lobby through a back door and walked along the outside hallway to get to Scully's room – the meeting place. "English," Scully whispered.

She swung open her door and saw the other grad student – Terbell - sitting at the edge of her bed. Mulder was leaning on the desk. Both of them stood up when she and Motsouka entered the room.

"Got anything worth sharing?" Mulder said.

Scully and Motsouka exchanged a look. "Yeah," Scully said. "You?"

They shook their heads. "What did you learn?" Mulder asked.

"They're using our numeral system – the one based off the Arabic system," Motsouka said. "Not the ancient Greek counting system."

"So that means they haven't been transported to ancient Greek. We already knew that," Terbell said.

Motsouka rolled her eyes. "It also means the language is a mix of modern and ancient. It's a hybrid."

"Which means someone or something could be pulling the strings on the language, but not all of it." Mulder began to pace.

"Another thing," Scully said. The door opened. Ruth and Wang strode into the room. Professor Ruth had a dark stain on his shirt.

"Everyone's back!" Ruth said. "Wonderful. How was the park, girls?"

Scully cringed. "We're not girls, Professor Ruth."

"Agent Mulder, Jonathan," Professor Wang said. "Any luck analyzing those recordings?"

Terbell shook his head. "The quality is very poor. I might be able to get a better sound when I've got my hands on a computer. For now, they're useless to me."

Professor Wang nodded. "Frustrating. Isn't it, Ruth?"

Professor Ruth was staring at the painting above Scully's bed – a messy watercolor of a corn field. "What? Yes of course."

"We noticed that the people here are using our number system. They can type in a phone number, no problem," Motsouka offered. She clasped her fingers together and looked at Professor Ruth.

"Fascinating," said Professor Wang. "And how did you find that out?"

Scully was a champion of logic. It made sense to tell Wang – the man who had brought them here and the ancient Greek expert – everything they knew. Her heart started strumming and some internal muscle in her abdomen tweaked. "Observation," she said. "We passed a phone booth on our way to the park."

Scully thought she saw Wang's eyes narrow for a moment, but only a moment later, he was nodding with a crease in his forehead. "I'm unclear on what it means, but it's interesting anyway."

"So. Next steps," Mulder rubbed his hands together, and walked over to Scully. "I think we need to talk to some people. We need info on the interaction."

Wang shook his head. "It's too dangerous. Maybe, maybe I can talk and record. Then, you all can analyze what I've got."

"That doesn't leave Scully and I with much to do, Professor Wang," Mulder said.

"Once we know what's going on, we can hand it all over to you, Agent Mulder."


	10. Chapter 10

Scully was just stepping into a shower when she heard a knock on her door. She wrapped a towel around her middle, walked across the room and opened it. Mulder looked down at her and smiled, leaned in and kissed her as he walked into the room. She stepped backward slowly, maintaining the kiss. When they reached the center of the room, she leaned back from him. "Frustrating day," she said.

Mulder nodded. "Professor Wang is hiding something," he said.

"Mulder." Scully walked over to the bed, secured her towel around her middle, and sat down on the white comforter. "Motsouka and I didn't tell Wang the truth about what happened. A little boy hurt himself at the playground. I intervened." She paused. "And interacted with the boy's mother. Motsouka speaks modern Greek, and we think they understood a few words. When she called the hospital to say she was coming – or I think she did – she punched in the numbers on her phone fast. That's why we think they're using our number system."

Mulder frowned. Scully saw lines appear on his forehead. "Why didn't you tell me right away?"

"I'm telling you now. Mulder, they didn't seem hostile. They seemed grateful, actually."

"Did you guys record any of it?"

Scully shook her head. "I don't think so. We talked to the man at the front desk too. He actually was trying to learn some English."

"Jesus."

She pivoted toward him. "You don't have any reason to be upset with me."

Mulder sighed. "I know I don't. I'm just jealous. I was stuck with Ruth and Wang for most of the day." He flopped back on the bed. "I missed you – missed working with you."

She laid next to him on her side, facing him. "I missed you too." She began to stroke his chest. "You're sweaty."

"Mmm. I need a shower."

"Funny. I was just about to take one."

His eyes met hers, and she grinned.

XXX

Scully woke up in the crook of Mulder's arm. Bright, white light seeped from the crack in the window's curtain. She looked up and saw his eyes cracked open. "Morning," she mumbled.

He kissed her.

She pivoted until she was laying on top of his chest. "Do we have time?" she breathed.

Mulder grinned. "It's a good thing Professor Ruth meditates." He stroked her back, reaching down until he grabbed her ass.

"Healthy for us all."

XXX

"I don't know why we don't be together openly," Mulder said from the bed.

Scully stopped flossing. She felt her shoulders tense. She resumed.

"I know you heard me," Mulder said.

Scully sighed. "It's just complicated, Mulder. It'll make work harder."

"We work together."

"Yes, but how other people treat us." _How other people treat me. _

"Our office is in the basement, Scully."

"It's different for women."

"Different how?"

Scully sighed. She threw the string of floss in the garbage and spit into the sink. "Look, let's just focus on the case for now."

Mulder appeared in the doorway. "We're always focusing on something. We've been focusing on one case or another since I started bringing this up four months ago."

"You should have learned by now that I don't want you bringing it up."

"Why?"

She faced him. He stood in the bathroom doorway. She bit back her first impulse. _I'm scared to fuck this up. _She focused on sounding diplomatic – sounding measured like she had for meeting with professors and then for job interviews and then for discussions with Skinner. "What if we…separate…and still have to engage in a professional capacity?"

"Do you have to make it sound clinical?"

Scully held his gaze. She felt angry and she wanted him to know it. His blue eyes seemed to grow larger as she focused on them.

They heard a knock on the door across the room. Slowly, Mulder turned and ambled over to it, leaving Scully the slide the bathroom door shut.

She began to change into her pantsuit. As she tugged off her t-shirt, she heard Terbell's voice. "Agent Mulder? I checked your room but didn't get an answer."

"Yep. What do you need?" Mulder said.

She heard the door shut. "Is Agent Scully here?"

"She's just finishing up in the bathroom."

"Good morning Mr. Terbell!" Scully called. "I'll just be a minute."

She found Terbell sitting at the edge of their unmade bed like a nervous child. Mulder was sitting on the desk across from him, still in his boxers and t-shirt. "What would you like to discuss?"

"I, uh." Terbell cleared his throat. "Professor Ruth acted strange last night. I, uh, wanted to let you know that. He's usually more…acute."

"Why do you think he's acting differently?"

"I don't know." Terbell was red. "I just thought you should know."

"Thank you, Mr. Terbell." Mulder said.

"Jonathan's fine." He stood up and started walking backward toward the door. "Thank you, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully. I'll see you in a little while."

Mulder waved as he left the room. Then, he turned to Scully. "We need to investigate this town without Wang."


	11. Chapter 11

Scully knew that she would no longer be able to dodge Mulder's questions about their relationship and she would disappoint Mulder. She had hoped that with his psychology background, he might understand why she was afraid to date him. If they were never officially dating, it may be easier for them to creep back into a work relationship. But if they dated, then how would they find a way to go back to normal? They couldn't do it.

She avoided his gaze during their meet, as Professor Wang once again instructed them to go into town, observe and record.

"This time, I'd like to stay with Agent Scully," Mulder told Wang.

"But we need your talents spread out," Professor Ruth interjected. "It's not every day you have FBI special agents helping you."

"We are more effective together," Scully said.

"If you would just consider splitting up for the morning," Wang said.

Scully looked at Mulder. He nodded. "Alright."

"Excellent. Agent Scully, Ms. Motsouka, why don't you take the park again. We'll take main street and find some new stores."

Scully found herself facing Motsouka as Mulder, Wang, Terbell and Ruth left the room.

Motsouka raised her eyebrows. "What do you think about skipping the park and trying to talk to the front desk man again?"

Scully smiled. "I like the way you think."

XXX

"Let's give them a few minutes to clear the area," Scully said. She sat down on the bed. Motsouka clasped her hands in front of her and looked around the room. "You can sit if you'd like."

Motsouka sat in the desk chair and faced Scully. She took a deep breath. "So." They stared at one another.

Scully broke the silence. "Forgive me, but is Professor Ruth always this distant? Mr. Terbell mentioned something."

Motsouka pursed her lips. "No, not distant. He's…old-fashioned would probably be the nicest phrase."

"Old fashioned?"

"You've heard. He forgets little things, like calling women by their title. He's probably a little behind in racial politics, and lesbian and gay rights, too. But he's not absent-minded. Not like he was the other day."

Scully nodded, cataloguing this information away to tell Mulder. She stood up. "Well. Let's see what the front desk man has to say."

They left the room and walked down the l-shaped hall to the front lobby. The man was standing in front of a series of note cards and scowling. Scully nudged Motsouka and nodded at the man.

"Oh, um. Geiá sou!" Motsouka said.

The man looked up and smiled. "εύέπεια!"

Motsouka pointed to herself. "Maria," she said. She pointed at Scully. "Scully."

"Maria. Scully," the man said. He pointed at himself. "Tom."

"He hasn't forgotten his name," Motsouka muttered. "And he can say things that break the rules of modern Greek phonology."

"Καλός?" The man asked.

"Naí. Καλός," Motsouka said. After pausing, she added, "good."

"Good?"

"Καλός. Good."

The man said something quickly in a string of garbled syllables. Scully looked at Motsouka who was staring at the man with her lips pursed. She shook her head.

"ξένος," he pointed. "Καλός. Good."

"χάpίν εχεlυ," Motsouka said.

Scully remembered hearing the woman at the park say the same phase. It meant thank you. As she smiled, she glanced outside the window and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as she saw Professor Wang's Ford pull in front of the motel. She tugged Motsouka's blazer sleeve and nodded. "We've got to go."

The front desk man turned, too. He scowled.

"χάpίν εχεlυ," Scully said, taking a step backward. The man did a little bow. She and Motsouka hurried back down the hallway.

"Why are they back so early?" Motsouka said. "Maybe we can sneak out the back."

"They've already seen our car. They know we haven't left."

"What do we do?"

"Let's go back to my room. We can pretend we've lost the car keys."


	12. Chapter 12

The knock on the door startled them even though they were waiting to hear it. Scully ambled across the room and swung open the door.

Professor Wang rushed inside the room – red faced. "Agent Scully, I don't know where you're partners is, but he could put us all in real danger."

Scully raised her eyebrows. She glanced behind Wang. Terbell and Professor Ruth stood behind him with blank faces. "When did he leave?"

"I did not expect this kind of impertinent behavior from the FBI," Wang said.

"Well. He'll be back, even if you aren't sure when he left," Scully said. "The town isn't that big."

"Use your cellphone device _thing _to contact him!"

Scully felt the muscles around her chest pinch. Yes – she hated it when Mulder went rogue. It was childish and irresponsible and…but she trusted Mulder and she did not trust Professor Wang. She didn't want Wang to know where he was. And if she called him – he would likely pick up.

"What are you waiting for?" Wang's eyes narrowed.

Slowly, Scully pulled out her cell phone and punched in Mulder's number, even though she had him on speed dial. The dial droned in her ear for five long, beats before Mulder's answering-machine voice (a little higher than his real voice) took over. She sighed in relief. "No response."

"Can you try again?"

Scully obliged. She glanced at Motsouka as she held the phone to her ear, but Motsouka was frowning at something across the room. The call went to the answering machine again. "He's not picking up. I'm going to go looking for him."

"You can't do that!" Wang said. When Scully glared at him, he added "not by yourself."

"Sir, if Mulder is in danger then he may be forced to do things that will scare people, and so far as I can tell, that's what we've been trying to avoid. So. I am going to find him, and if you would like to help, you may."

"Y-you'll go in circles, not being able to talk to anyone." Wang said. His face was red.

"I'll go with her," Motsouka said, stepping forward. "I can get by with some modern Greek."

"No!" Wang shouted. Scully and Motsouka stared at him. "That's not necessary," he added, quietly. He looked at Motsouka, and then turned and addressed Terbell and Roth, who were standing behind him. "I'll go. You linguists should stay here and analyze any recording we have. It's your job, after all."

XXX

Before Scully left, she wrote down her cell phone number and handed it to Motsouka. They were standing just outside of Professor Ruth's room, where the linguists had gathered to study the recordings. "Would you call me if he comes back?" She cleared her throat. "Or, if you find out anything important?"

"Of course."

Professor Wang was already a few feet down the hallway, away from them. He cleared this throat. Scully glared at him before turning and following him to the lobby. She didn't want to leave Motsouka behind. She disliked the idea of depending on Wang to communicate with the townspeople. While Motsouka was no Mulder, she was, at least, constructive.

"W-where should we go first?" Wang asked. They entered the parking lot. The sun was beginning to descend from its apex overhead.

Scully shrugged. "Let's try the park." She knew he was more interested in the library and the neighborhoods. Searching for him at the park would give him more time to accomplish whatever hairbrained mission he had sent out for himself. Scully glanced over her shoulder. Wang had stopped a few feet behind her with his key in his hand. "I'll drive," she said.

"But…"

She marched to the Ford, got in the driver's seat and waited. Wang approached, looking like a scolded puppy heeding a command to heal.

XXX

They didn't find Mulder at the park. To Sully's surprise, he wasn't downtown, either. They had rolled into a neighborhood now – one not too far from main street. Large, pink clouds streaked across the sky and she glanced up at them. She kept listening for her cellphone. Nothing. She felt the muscles in her neck begin to tense.

She glanced at the car's clock. 4:48. They had left at 2:00. She heard her stomach rumble.

Professor Wang's face was nearly pressed to the passenger-side window. He hadn't spoken for nearly forty-five minutes.

Scully cleared her throat. "Are…are you alright, Professor?"

"Can we park the car for a moment?"

Scully pulled over and parked on an empty curb.

"I think we need to meditate," he said.

"Meditate? Like Professor Ruth?"

Wang nodded. "Professor Ruth has been educating me on the benefits of meditation, especially when one feels overwhelmed."

"We can return to the motel," Scully said.

Wang shook his head. "Here is fine."

She pulled in front of a yellow house with a green lawn and hydrangeas near its front porch. She rolled down the window a crack. The smell of barbeque leaked into the stale car air.

Professor Wang closed his eyes. "Will you meditate with me?" he asked.

"No, thank you." Scully put her hands in her lap.

Professor Wang opened his eyes and stared at her. "It may help us. If we can synthesize enough information to locate Agent Mulder, we could save a lot of time."

Scully smiled without her teeth. "Yes, but I think I can synthesize information without meditation, thank you. But please, take your time."

"I wonder if you are," Wang whispered.

Scully felt her cheeks grow warm. She was ready to tell him to mind his own business when he added, "please just indulge me."

Scully signed and close her eyes.

Professor Wang made a little noise of approval. They sat in silence for a moment. Scully peaked at Professor Wang. His eyes were shut and his face looked serene. Suddenly, he started to speak. His voice was high and soft. "Now imagine you are walking down a very long staircase."

She imagined walking down a flight of golden steps.

"You are going down. And you are going down, and you are going to the most beautiful meadow you have ever seen. You walk into the meadow. You take off your shoes."

Scully noticed that her breathing had slowed. She let herself sink into the calm feeling spreading through her chest.

"You walk into the meadow. The grass feels cool between your toes. You lay down."

She felt the soft springy earth below her. Each muscle in her neck had relaxed.

"You close your eyes. You are completely at peace and all is well." Wang paused. "Now listen closely. You are going to listen to me and what I tell you to do. Breathe in. Breathe out."

Scully obeyed.

"You are going to show me where your partner is. You are going to find out what he knows, and you are going to tell me."

"Scully!"

In the meadow, Scully opened her eyes. Melissa stood in front of her. A soft yellow halo accented her edges. "Melissa?"

"Scully you need to go. You need to open your eyes," Melissa said.

"Then, you're going to tell your boss in Washington that he should hire me. You're going to recommend me for a chief linguistic position."

"It's lovely here," Scully told Melissa.

"Mulder needs you, Scully. You've got to wake up. Don't listen to him."

"Who?" Scully felt a little dizzy.

"Him. He's not good. Wake up now." Melissa was reaching out for her. "Wake up!" She grabbed her shoulder and began to shake. Melissa's hand burned through her shirt, and felt like fire on her skin.

Scully's eyes flew open. The street had grown dark. Wang was staring at her. She met his eyes as he lunged at her. She pivoted, kicked him, felt for the door handle, opened it, and tumbled out of the driver's seat onto the pavement. Pain shot up her tailbone.

Wang growled. Scully rolled away from the car, scampered up and began to run down the street. Behind her, she heard Wang turn the key in the ignition. She saw an open white gate on the side of a green house, and barreled off the road, toward it. The sun was waning now. She smelled hot dogs. Slamming the gate shut, she made a beeline to the house's yard. Women were congregating on a white porch and men were standing in the yard. They stopped their conversations, their grilling and gaped at her. Children paused their tag game on a playground.

"Uhh,"

"Scully?" The man at the grill said. It was Mulder.


	13. Chapter 13

"Mulder!" She ran to the grill and reached her arms out to hug him, before stopping short and letting them fall to her side.

"Is everything alright?" Mulder asked.

"No." She looked around the yard. "What are you doing here?"

"Are you okay?" He faced her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

She shrugged him off. "Yes. I'm fine. Mulder _what _are you doing here?"

"It's a long story," Mulder said. "But shortened, I made sure some kids didn't get hit by a car when retrieving a ball and was invited in the back for a drink."

"Mulder there's something wrong with Wang. I don't know what he wants, but I think he has Professor Ruth under hypnosis. He tried to hypnotize me in the car just now."

"Hypnosis? I didn't expect hypnosis."

A man in a red and black checkered shirt approached them slowly. He did a thumb-up and then looked at them, questioningly. Mulder returned the thumb up. He put his arm around Scully. "Scully," he said.

"γύυή." The man smiled. He extended his hand.

Scully stared at it for a moment and then shook it. The man laughed. "εύέπεια!"

Scully remembered the motel man had said these words εύέπεια. She thought it was some sort of greeting. She wracked her brain for an appropriate reply. "χάpίν εχεlυ," she said slowly.

The man grinned and behind him, a few partygoers cheered. A woman approached her with a glass of wine. Scully wondered if she was somehow still in Wang's car, hypnotized. The surrealness of this moment felt almost unnerving. Isn't this scene what she mused over, sometimes, after work a family barbeque with Mulder? She would be left half-squirming over the docility of the scene, and half-longing for it. And here it was, under bizarre circumstances.

Scully took the wine. It tasted sweet and fruity. "χάpίν εχεlυ," she repeated.

The woman responded with a flowing string of sound. The noise calmed Scully. She felt Mulder place his hand on the small of her back.

He leaned in close to her ear and whispered, "where's Wang now?"

"I left him in the car. We were looking for you and were parked just down the street. I don't know if he saw which yard I went into. Come to think of it, he should have." She felt her nerves tighten again. "I guess that means he should be here by now."

"He has the car keys?"

Scully nodded. For a moment, Mulder glared at her. Her jaw clenched.

Mulder's face relaxed to a neutral expression. "He probably went back to the hotel," Mulder said. "The linguists. Do you think they're hypnotized, too?"

Scully shook her head. "No, or at least, not at the moment. Motsouka and I agreed that something was wrong. We had talked to the motel manager."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"Mulder that isn't the point. Motsouka and Terbell, they might…"

"Be in trouble, I know."

Around them, Scully saw a few of the partygoers eyeing them. They looked concerned. Scully caught the eye of one man in a vest. She smiled and gave him a thumbs up. He repeated the action. "Have you found anything out here?" She asked.

"Nothing I'm sure you don't know, Scully." Mulder said. "When did you learn ancient Greek, by the way?"

Scully faced him. "Why are you upset with me? You're the run who ran off."

"I'm not upset." Mulder turned back to the stove and used the tongs to move seven hot dogs onto a paper plate. "Let's get going, then." He walked the plate over to a picnic table and set it aside a pile of hot dog buns. A few kids ran up to him, and he high fived one. Then, he approached the hosts and extended his hand.

"χαίpειν πάχει?" The male host said.

"Thank you," Mulder said. He turned, nodded and Scully and started walking toward the gate.

Scully scanned the picnic scene, trying to memorize the domesticity. Then, she waved in the general direction of the townspeople and followed Mulder out of the gate.


	14. Chapter 14

"So, how do we get back to the motel?"

Scully glared at him as she tried to catch her breath. "I don't know. We could walk."

"Be serious, Scully."

"I am serious. I don't know if there's another way. I don't have the motel's phone number. There aren't any cabs around and even if there were, we might not be able to make the driver understand us."

Mulder but his hands behind his head and sighed. "I can't believe you left the keys in our car."

Scully pursed her lips. "Next time I'm trying to escape a crazy hypnotist, I'll be more careful. C'mon. Let's at least get out of suburbia. Maybe someone will give us a ride." They began to walk to the end of the street. "I think I remember the way to the main drag, actually."

Mulder grunted. "We need a plan for when we finally get to the motel. Does Wang have your room key?"

"No. It's in my pocket. I didn't leave anything important in the car."

"Good."

"Mulder, that doesn't mean he can't get access to our room. He could steal the motel's skeleton key or hypnotize the front desk man to give it to him."

Mulder ignored her. He was striding along the sidewalk and had to take two paces to each one of his strides. "What does he want? Do you think he's responsible for the Greek-speaking?"

"Maybe he wants to control our understanding of the town," Scully said. When Mulder didn't respond, she added. "He shows signs of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. I mean – I'm not sure I believe he has hypnotized all of these people to speak Greek. It's impossible."

"But in the absence of another explanation…"

"Mulder, we could be hypnotized for all I know. It is certainly more plausible than hypnotizing an entire town."

"We'd remember going under," he said. "Besides, events like this would be hallucinations."

"Just because in current recorded cases of hypnotism require a patient's consent doesn't mean Wang hasn't figured out some means to do so at another point, like during sleep or…"

"Scully we're wasting time."

"Mulder, why is it if you don't like my idea, we're wasting time? We've got to be sure we aren't the ones under."

Mulder bit his lip and scoffed. "Alright. How do we make sure we aren't under this new kind of hypnosis? What is your medical opinion?"

Scully leaned back on her heels and bit her lip. "I know there as physical indications of hypnosis, but I don't know if we could test them if we are – or I am – somehow hallucinating." She stared at the pavement. There were no bright colors. It remained still.

"So, there's no way to check, besides faith that this is real. You've got to take the leap." Mulder started walking away.

Scully kept staring at the pavement. She didn't want to move. Mulder was making a point, of course. A shitty, passive-aggressive point about them that she couldn't escape, not even in her possible hallucinogenic state. Well. If she was glazed out on a bed, hypnotized and hallucinating, there was nothing she could do. But if she wasn't – if Athens, Nebraska was real – then two grad students were in big trouble.

"Mulder, wait."

Mulder turned around.

She pointed at the house with the barbeque. "I'm going to get us a ride."

XXX

Scully wished she could remember the word for help. She stood in the hosts' little kitchen for five minutes, pantomiming driving and pointing around at the yard. They didn't understand her until the woman handed her a pen and paper, and she drew the motel. The woman smiled and nodded. She bit her lip before nodding again, and leading Scully into the garage.

When they pulled out in the woman's red Toyota, Mulder was waiting in the parking lot. He hopped into the backseat. "χάpίν εχεlυ," Scully repeated to the woman.

"Xapiv exselev," Mulder mumbled. The woman glanced back at him in the rearview mirror, confused.

They drove in silence. Scully couldn't shake her nerves about speaking English around the woman. It was silly, really. Wang's declaration that the townspeople were hostile was clearly false information. Of course, there was also Mulder's skulking. She could tell he was angry at her – he was vocal when he felt furious about work but with her, he was passive aggressive. She turned around and looked at him. He was staring at the window. She turned back to the dashboard. There were only a few cars on the main drag. She, if anything, should be upset with him.

The woman turned left, and the neon motel sign appeared. Scully tapped the dash with her fingers and pointed.

"ωδε?" The woman's voice rose. She pointed.

Scully nodded. The woman pulled up by the curb of the motel, and Scully threw open the door. "χάpίν εχεlυ." She sounded like a broken record.

The young woman smiled again. "ωσς κα ύίγίής."

Mulder stepped out from the backseat and shut the door. He grinned at her and gave her two thumbs up.

The woman drove away.

They watched the Toyota turn the corner back to the main strip. "That was incredibly nice of her," Scully said.

"Salt the earth," Mulder said. "Now, let's try to get to your room without the nutty professor finding us."

Scully surveyed the empty row of doors in front of them. "Do you think he's in there already?"

"Maybe. But we're the ones with the guns."

They approached Scully's door. She glanced at Mulder as she pulled the keys out of her trench coat pocket. Then, she put the key in the lock, and turned.

A muted scream sounded. The room was dark. Scully grabbed her gun and slid out of the doorway. "Who's there?"

The muffled scream repeated. Mulder stepped forward, guarding her. With her gun extended, she reached under his arm and flicked on the light. She rushed to the little bathroom. Motsouka was tied to the desk chair, which was placed just in front of the toilet. Duct tape was wrapped around her mouth.

"Cover me!" Scully pushed Mulder's arm aside and rushed forward. He followed on her heals. Scully knelt by Motsouka and ripped the duct tape off like a band-aid.

Motsouka gasped. "Get out of the room!"


	15. Chapter 15

The door slammed behind them. Mulder raced up to it, jerked the handle and heaved, but he couldn't force the door more than a quarter inch open.

"Damnit Mulder. How did we not see that trap?" Scully felt like throwing something at him. She wasn't sure why. She was the one who rushed into the room, after all. He could have held her back. Of course, Mulder would never the be responsible one, would he? She picked up the pieces and made the mundane decisions and one day she'd wake up and be a nag, wasn't that it?

Mulder slammed against the door again. "I can get us out of here, Scully." There's some kind of dumpster blocking us. But that's all it is"

"Stop!" Scully shrieked. She hated the sound of her own voice.

Mulder looked at her with his mouth half-open. "I'm…"

Scully took a deep breath. "Let's try to find something in here that will work as a lever."

"Excuse me?" Motsouka was frowning in her chair. "Can someone please untie me?"

They looked at Motsouka at the same time. Scully bent down and started to work on the tight knot's that fastened Motsouka to the chair. "What happened?"

Mulder approached and knelt by the opposite side of the chair. He pulled out a Swiss-Army knife and began to saw through the coarse rope.

"It's a vending machine, by the way."

"What?"

"The thing blocking the door. It's a vending machine. I saw Ruth and Terbell setting it up with a lift-cart when Wang was shutting the door on me. They're working with him."

"Did he attack you?" Mulder asked.

Motsouka shook her head. "Wang came back and knocked on my door. He said you wanted to see me, Scully. He led me to your room and opened the door for me. I walked in and then suddenly, something hit my head. When I woke up, I was tied to this chair."

"How is your head?" Scully examined Motsouka's forehead, and then her eyes.

"Sore," Motsouka said. "What's going on?"

"Do you think he was planning this from the start?" Scully asked Mulder.

Mulder shook his head. "No. You were supposed to go under his hypnotism, the same way Ruth and Terbell probably are. He wouldn't have used a vending machine to block a door if he wasn't thinking on his feet. It's sloppy and we'll get it out of the way eventually. He's buying time."

"Where did he get the rope and the lift-cart?"

Mulder shrugged. "Probably somewhere in the motel. He could gave gotten access to the store closet. I think he's been in this town long enough to find its ins and outs."

"What do you mean hypnotism?" Motsouka was rubbing her wrists and darting glances between Mulder and Scully.

Scully sighed. "We think that somehow, Professor Wang is using a new form of hypnotism to control people."

"But why?"

"If we can figure out why he's doing this, maybe we can figure out how to stop him," Mulder said. "Like with serial killers, we've got to get in the monster's head to _get _the monster."

"Motsouka, what do you know about Professor Wang. Have you ever taken any of his courses at the university or done research with him?"

Motsouka stood up and shook her head. "No to classes or 's an adjunct prof. I know that. He's only been at the university for about a year. There's rumors that he's sniffing around for a full-time job but so far, no luck."

"Does he have any enemies at the university?"

"Not that I know of. He doesn't have many friends either. No one's quite sure how he got the research job. He only teaches one class. It doesn't have any teaching assistant positions attached to it."

"Who hired him?" Mulder said.

"That I do know," Motsouka said. "It was the Linguistic department chair. She owed some favor to the Classic's department chair, who was all set to hire him and then something fell through in classics, so they sent him over to our department."

"Something fell through…" Mulder muttered. Then, more loudly, he asked, "do you know if Professor Wang had any personal issues with the Classics department?"

Motsouka shook her head and bit her lip. _She knows more. _Scully caught her eye.

"Rumors are – and keep in mind these are just rumors – that Wang and the Classics director had some sort of personal falling-out. A break-up."

Mulder looked at Scully. "Do you think it's possible for a man to hypnotize an entire town to prove a point to an ex?"

"Why wouldn't he just hypnotize the ex?" Scully asked.

Motsouka coughed. "Because controlling an entire town is much more impressive?"

"She's right," Mulder said. "Think of the academic street cred. Think of the power. He's building himself into a superhero."

"I don't think that's how the townspeople think of him," Motsouka said. "Remember that flier I took at the park? I had a chance to examine it. I left it in my room, but it was basically calling for a town meeting to discuss someone. The word that described the person looked like magician. I thought I had mis-translated it but now, I think that's maybe what they meant. Or, at least in the ballpark of what they meant."

"Wang must not have seen it," Scully said.

"Or, he did, and he plans to go to it." Mulder began to pace. "When's the meeting?"

"Tonight," Motsouka said. "Naturally."


	16. Chapter 16

Scully was afraid they were going to have to trek into town and risk missing the meeting. Motsouka wasn't even sure where it was – the location translated to 'meeting venue' as far as she could tell.

"I think it's the town hall," Mulder said. "I walked around after I ditched Wang. They were setting up for something in there."

"How do we get there?" Scully said. She looked at Motsouka. "Wang stole the car."

"Well, this is a hotel, isn't it?" Motsouka said.

"So?" Scully bit her lip.

Motsouka raised her eyebrows. The right edges of her mouth tugged upward. "So, let's get the front desk man to call us a cab."

XXX

When they arrived in the lobby, they saw the front desk clerk lounging behind the desk, pouring over a fat book.

"M-main street," the man said, his head down and his eyes trained on the text. Scully saw columns filled with addresses, printed on thin, yellow paper.

Mulder cleared his throat and the man's head shot up. "χαίρε!"

Mulder waved, keeping his elbow tucked by his side. He looked at Motsouka.

Motsouka cleared her throat. "χαίρε." She paused. "Uh, αυτοκίνητο?" She motioned at Scully and Mulder, and then back to herself. "χρειαζόμαστε."

The man looked confused. "αυτοκίνητο?"

"Umm…" Motsouka looked at Scully and bit her lip.

Scully grabbed the sides of an invisible steering wheel and began to hum in her throat. She pretended to drive back and forth. Then, she pointed to Motsouka, Mulder and herself. She stuck her palms together and her hands up, like she was praying.

The man's head bobbed back and forth while nodding. He grabbed something from under the front desk and hauled out a red sign with the white letters 'closed' printed on it. He looked at Motsouka for confirmation. "άκρίβης?"

Motsouka nodded. The man approached, pulling a key off his belt. He led them out the front door of the entrance building, and then locked it.

"χάpίν εχεlυ," Scully said. Beside her, Motsouka was rubbing her wrists. The skin looked red and itchy where it had been bound with rope.

XXX

They had already pulled out of the parking lot in Tom - the front desk man's - green Chevy when he asked, "ποΰ?"

Motsouka turned around from her spot in the front seat. "That means where," she said. She sounded pleased. She addressed Tom. "Dimarcheío."

He looked confused.

"Umm. Póli. Aíthousa."

Tom shook his head.

"Any chance you can pantomime City Hall, Agent Scully?" Motsouka asked.

"City Hall?" Tom asked.

Scully saw Mulder lean forward and tap Tom on the shoulder. He pointed straight ahead. "Let's see if some good old-fashioned pointing helps us get there," he said. "I think I remember the way."

Tom drove the car from the motel parking lot as Mulder navigated from the backseat. They reached Main Street. Tom slowed the car. Mulder pointed to the white wooden building at the end of the street. "It's the town hall," he told Motsouka and Scully. "We stopped by here – Terbell, Wang, Ruth and I – while you two went to the park. There's a courtroom in there."

They pulled up in front of it. A stout, old man stood in open doorway of the front door. All four of them sat for a moment, staring at him. "It's Ruth," Mulder muttered. Professor Ruth looked dazed, but somehow sturdy. He didn't seem to see the car.

Scully felt the sinking feeling that she had made a juvenile mistake. They had made it to their desired location with a plan for next steps. She tried to delve into her dim memories on the one hypnotism lecture a professor had given during medical school. Wang's hypnotism – crazy and novel – was still hypnotism in its essence. Hypnotism doesn't work, she knew, without deep concentration. They needed to interrupt that meeting before Wang could get anything done. "Is there a back door?" she asked.

"I think so," Mulders said. "But I bet it's locked."

"If we can manage to get into the building undetected, maybe we can figure out how many people Wang has under his control and stop him from hypnotizing anyone else.

Mulder nodded. "Right." He tapped Tom's shoulder and pointed behind him. Tom reversed the car down the street toward the diner. Mulder held up his hand to stop just as they reached the first cross-section that lead into suburbia. He patted Tom's shoulder. "Thanks."

"Where's he going?" Motsouka asked Scully.

Scully sighed and shrugged. "C'mon. There's only one way to find out." She cleared her throat and looked at Tom, who was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and glancing nervously in the rearview mirror. "χάpίν εχεlυ." The words sounded like the chorus to a strange song that she kept humming in this little town. She opened the driver's side back door and slid out of the car.


	17. Chapter 17

They caught up with Mulder in about thirty seconds. "If we can sneak around the back or the side of the building, maybe we can get in through a window," he said.

"Do you think Wang has other guards?" Motsouka asked.

Mulder shook his head, "I think he wants as many people as possible in on this meeting." He began to jog down the street, towards the back of the city hall.

They reached a chain link fence that surrounded the building. It was gateless. Scully silently thanked herself for wearing a pantsuit and began to climb the far corner of the fence with Mulder and Motsouka. She struggled at the top, clenching her abdominal muscles to avoid teetering and ripping her bottoms. The metal dug into her fingers. She was the last one down.

Hunched over, they approached two fat windows at the back of the building. Scully looked up at one. The windowpane was about five feet from the ground. _The hall must be on a hill, _she thought.

"Where do you think they are in that building?" Motsouka said. "It's not that big."

"The courtroom," Scully and Mulder said together.

"We've noticed a lot of small towns have old courtrooms in their city halls," Scully explained.

Motsouka nodded. "So, if we can get in through ones of these offices, maybe we can get into the courtroom."

"Exactly," Scully said, straightening up and surveying the window again. It was shut tightly. "We could break it," she said and bit her lip.

"They'd hear it," Mulder said.

"What if someone opened it for us?" Motsouka smiled like she had suddenly thought of the right answer on a difficult test question.

Scully wanted to guess what she meant. She wracked her brain. "Do you mean Tom?"

"I bet he's still waiting out there. As long as I can convey a few words to him, I think he would help."

Scully and Mulder looked at one another. "It's worth a shot," Scully said.

XXX

Scully and Mulder stood shoulder to shoulder, watching Motsouka attempt to articulate to Tom what they needed him to do. Recognition dawned slowly – a half smile at an understood utterance followed by eyebrows raised in confusion. Scully wanted to slip her hand into Mulder's, but each time her fingers brushed his, she remembered their argument and pulled back sharply.

Finally, Tom gave a thumbs up and, without prompting, strode toward the city hall.

"Let's go," Motsouka said. She strode down the block parallel the hall, ready to loop to its backside. Scully looked at Mulder. He nodded. They followed Motsouka in unison. Scully thought how well they worked as team – even angry – and then pushed the thought from her mind. _Focus on the task at hand, _she told herself.

"There!" Motsouka called. Scully saw a hand waving from the far-right window. They approached it to find Tom, about six feet above them, in the window frame. He grinned.

"Scully, why don't you go first and make sure the room is secure," Mulder said. Scully nodded. Mulder bent down and cupped his hands. Without hesitating, Scully stood on them and reached from the window frame. She grasped it and felt Tom's arms grab her shoulders. He pulled her into a small office, wallpapered with purple flowers.

There was a little brown desk with a fat, white computer on it, and a wall calendar with an image of a puppy in a flowerpot. Another desk was pushed against the opposite wall. Scully saw papers scattered across it. She approached it slowly, peering down. She saw printouts of what looked like meeting minutes. Fat annotations in strangely spelled words – Greek but without Greek letters – filled the margins.

A thud behind her made her jump. Motsouka and Tom sprung up from the floor. She heard a bump against the side of the building and saw Mulder's hands grip the windowsill. The three of them rushed over to the window to grab him, pulling him into the room as he slid, belly first, across the floor.

"Step one: success!" Mulder looked up and grinned. His hair flopped in his face.

"Do you want to split up or stay together to approach the courtroom?" Scully asked. "Provided there are multiple entrances."

"I can scout things out for us." Mulder clambered to his feet.

"Wait," Motsouka said. Scully and Mulder stared at her. "Has Wang tried to hypnotize either one of you?"

Mulder shook his head.

"He had me half-under." Scully bit her lip. "I got out, though."

Motsouka nodded. "I promise you he didn't get me under. I don't know why, but it didn't work. Hence, the chair." She smiled wryly. "I'm not an agent. I know that. But you can be sure I won't get caught in anything. I can go."

Scully and Mulder looked at each other. "W-we can't put a civilian in unnecessary danger," Scully said.

"I was already tied to a chair by three men. I think I can handle a scouting mission."

Scully winced. If she and Mulder has done their job better, they could have spared Motsouka from trauma. She'd be damned in Motsouka was injuired again. "Do you think there's a danger of hypnotism?" She asked Mulder.

Mulder shook his head. "I doubt it, but with all of those people…I don't know. I don't know how's he's doing it or if the effects would be exacerbated by the group. I'm fairly certain Wang has no weapons, but I'm not sure." He sighed. "Scully I think you should go with her. She can pull you back if something happens."

"Really?" Scully felt surprised. Mulder rarely gave up an opportunity to be the first on the scene.

Mulder nodded. He held her gaze for a moment. "Take care of yourself, please," he said quietly to Scully. Scully felt his fingers brush the top of her hand, and then fall back to his sides. She nodded.


	18. Chapter 18

Old, yellow lights buzzed above them as Scully and Motsouka crept down the wood-paneled hallway. Finding the courtroom had turned out to be stupidly easy. As soon as they had exited the office, they had taken on right turn which spat them into a corridor that finished in two double doors. _Bingo. _

"Do you think we can open them without anyone noticing?" Motsouka whispered.

Scully shrugged. "I don't know how visible the entrance is.

"Maybe we should just get Agent Mulder, and then all go in."

Scully bit her lip. Motsouka was right – they had located the courtroom and getting Mulder was the smartest plan. Why didn't she want his help? It was _Mulder _– Mulder who knew what kind of tea she liked and how she was partial to bubble baths and what kind of movies made her smile and how to make her toes curl. And it was also Mulder who still left her behind to follow his own hairbrained leads and who blamed her for mislaid plans and who didn't understand that if she admitted to everyone at the Bureau that she was sleep with her partner that every time she had to have meetings with the higher-ups they would look at her and think of sex. She needed to remember how to operate without him.

Scully took a deep breath. "I am going to open very slowly, and we are going to peak inside, okay?"

Motsouka glanced down the hall again and then nodded. "If you think it's best…"

Scully grasped hold of the cold metal door handle and pushed. The door was made from heavy, old wood. She opened it six inches.

They had a straight view to Wang, who was standing sitting at the judge's bench with his arms raised. His lips were moving, but Scully couldn't hear any sound. In fact, the room was strangely quiet – no rustling and chewing or pencil-scratching paper to disrupt the speaker. Scully craned her neck. It looked like everyone around her was asleep.

Wang stepped down from the judge's bench. His arms were still raised. "εγω ειμαι δεσπότης," he chanted.

"He's saying 'he is' something. I don't recognize that last word." Motsouka said behind her.

Scully heard snoring. Wang's face grimaced. "εγω ειμαι δεσπότης!"

"Οχι!" A woman shouted.

Wang lowered his hands. "σίγάν."

"He's told her to be quiet, I think." Motsouka whispered.

The woman shouted again. "Οχι!"

Wang disappeared from Scully's view. Suddenly, the woman screamed. The sound caused a bubble in Scully's stomach to rise and twist. She burst into the room and ran to its center, her gun in her hand. "FBI agent! Stop!"

Around her over one-hundred people were crowded on benches and in chairs. Many of the people were dazed – their gaze drifting somewhere above Scully's head. Others had their eyes closed completely. A few faces, though, stared right at her. She felt the weight of her gun in her outstretched hands.

"Get away from her, Wang." She kept the gun trained on him. The professor stood with his hands on a woman's head, he fingers working in between her blond hair. He snarled.

"Scully?" She heard footsteps running down the hall.

"έχθρόϛ!" Wang called.

In her peripheral vision, Scully saw a figure stand in front of her. "Raise your hands above your head slowly," she told Wang.

Wang looked behind her. Then, he smiled. "πλήσσειν."

She heard the creek of old wood and the shuffle of chairs first. "Scully?" Motsouka said behind her. Then, Mulder: "Scully!"

Everyone moved at once. Four townsmen stood up and began to stumble toward them. Wang threw the woman in front of him and sprinted toward the judge's bench. Scully made a beeline after him.

She heard Mulder shout behind her. "Scully!" She kept running, leaping over the bar and scrambling onto the little platform. She saw Wang rush through a wooden door behind the podium. She raced through it to the judge's chamber – a dark office with a red upholstered chair. Another door at the end of the room was flung open.

Mulder appeared behind her. "Where is he?"

"C'mon," Scully raced out of the room and felt herself slam into a soft, round chest. Professor Ruth gasped. She looked into his eyes. His pupils were dilated.

Scully heard shouting in the courtroom. She sidestepped Ruth and was turning to make sure Mulder was okay when she felt someone grab her wrist. Terbell squeezed.

"Let go of her!" Mulder raised his gun.

Scully rolled her wrist from his grasp and ducked out of his way. He reacted slowly, as if drugged. "Come on, Mulder!"

Mulder faked left and then ran right around the dazed guards. Scully grabbed his arm as he halted. Ruth and Terbell stood just before the doorway of the judge's chamber, rocking back and forth as if waiting to respond.

She raced forward and slammed her gun on Ruth's skull. He heavy man stood a moment, and then crumpled to the floor. Moments later, she saw Terbell follow in suit.

"Smart," Mulder said behind her. He locked his gun and slid it into his pocket.

"Can you help me move them into this room? We can't lock them in but we can disorient them."

Mulder nodded. Together, they shoved the two men into the judge's office and slammed the door shut.

Mulder clapped his hands together. "Let's hope they're out for a while."

Scully heard voices shouting down the hallway. They were getting louder. "Where's Motsouka?" She said.

"I told her to flee."

Someone shrieked. They began to jog down the hallway together. Scully heard her shoes clack on the old, wood floor. They rounded a corner to the building's entrance where a crowd of townspeople meandered in disarray. Some clapped in others' faces, some shook their loved ones. A child was crying. They stopped short.

Mulder surveyed the area. "Wang's gone," he said.

People called at one another in foreign syllables – cacophonous and frenetic noises seemed to bounce in and out of every corner in the room. Suddenly, Scully felt a hand on her shoulder. She whirled around, her hand on her gun.


	19. Chapter 19

"It's me!" Motsouka said.

"Oh, thank God."

"You guys should find Wang. I'll figure this out."

"We can't leave you," Scully said.

"Not with Ruth and Terbell around." Mulder glanced behind them. "They're knocked out right now in the judge office, but I don't know what they'll do when they regain consciousness."

"If he gets away, we'll never get everyone out of this mess," Motsouka said.

Scully bit her lip. She couldn't leave Motsouka – a civilian – to sort out this possibly dangerous mess. "I guess…" she glanced at Mulder. "I guess I can stay and direct people." She felt afraid for Mulder, chasing Wang alone, but she knew if they were playing to their strengths, she should delegate, and he should chase. She handled the down-to-earth – the reports and the justification of her actions. Mulder dreamed. He chased down evil and danger and got results.

Mulder faced her. "Getting Wang without you is a recipe for disaster."

Scully raised her eyebrows. She felt silly for thinking he could go solo in the first place and flushed at his recognition of her – even if she deserved that recognition. She stared back at him.

"Guys," Motsouka said. They both jumped and turned back towards the grad student. "I'll be okay. I promise. You can tell me to seek safety and I'll agree, so you won't get in any trouble."

"But?" Mulder said,

"But I'm still going to sort things out here. And I promise, I'll run at the first sign of Ruth or Terbell."

"No, we…" Scully began.

"Everyone!" Motsouka shouted. She waved her hands above her head. The townspeople near her stopped moving. "Geia! Akoúo." She glanced at Mulder and Scully and nodded at the door. Scully took off jogging through the still crowd with Mulder at her heels. As she ran through the town hall's front doorway, she found herself barreling through the final vestiges of evening sunlight.

"Where do you think he's gone?" Mulder asked. "The motel?"

"Maybe," Scully said. "But even if he has, how are we going to get there?" She faced him.

Mulder smiled. He pulled car keys from his pocket. "Our good man Tom let me borrow them."

XXX

Mulder had driven halfway down the main drag when Scully put her hand on the dash and shouted, "stop!" The idea hit her like lightning. "Mulder, the gas station. The station he met us at the first night."

"What about it?"

"Remember he wanted us to leave our car there?"

"Yeah, to make us more dependent on him."

"But what if it wasn't just a convenient place to leave the car? Think about it – an abandoned gas and trucking station. It's a good hideout – better than the hotel where he knows we are bound to look."

"Scully, you've got no evidence." Mulder smiled. "You sound like me."

"Remember how he wanted to be secretive? He wanted us to keep our voices down, even though there wasn't anyone around."

"He was trying to scare us."

"What if there's someone there. Mulder, you said it yourself. You think he's doing all this to prove a point. AIf no one is watching, there's no point to prove. The motel isn't secure for him, Mulder. And Tom is clearly helpful. He was studying English."

Mulder kept silent, his eyes fixed on the road. Without warning, he swerved right, and Scully felt herself slammed into the passenger side door. "This is the road out of town. I think it'll take us to the depo."

Scully caught her breath, up-righting herself.

"I trust you," he said, and pushed his foot harder on the gas pedal.

XXX

They didn't see the unlit mobile sign until they nearly passed it. The prairie dark encompassed them as they turned into the truck stop. It looked abandoned at first – their two headlights revealing only a narrow scope of lot.

"There." Mulder pointed to a car parked snugly against the side of the abandoned Mobile convenience store. "I think we're going to need flashlights."

Scully squinted at the cinderblock building. It wore darkness on its edges. There were black bars covering one, small window. She shuttered. Even after years as an agent, she still felt haunted at where people kept victims. Focusing, she opened the glove compartment and found – bingo – one small flashlight. "We're in luck."

They got out of the car, and each pulled out their guns. Mulder gestured in the direct of the front door and Scully nodded. They approached together. Scully prayed to herself that Wang had not seen their headlights approach.

They reached the door and flanked themselves on its sides, guns at the ready. Scully flicked on the flashlight with her other hand.

"FBI!" Scully called. "Professor Wang, we are out here and armed."

A low wind swept across the prairie, shrieking.

Without waiting for a response, Mulder raised his foot, lunged forward and kicked the door handle. The handle jolted up and down, and the door creaked open.

Scully shone the dim, yellow flashlight beam into the room. She nodded at Mulder and covered him as they entered. The smell of mildew enveloped her. The floors were bare concrete, and Scully saw mold growing on the wall. She used the flashlight to search each corner of the room. No one and nothing, save for a pile of blankets. Then, she saw it: the back door was open. "He's got to be here somewhere," she said.

Suddenly, they heard the whir of a motor. Scully whipped around. She saw Professor Ruth's car careen out of the parking lot.


	20. Chapter 20

Mulder raced beside her. "C'mon Scully!" They ran to the car. Scully had not shut the door when Mulder started gunning the engine. She forced it shut.

"He's gone back to town," Mulder said. He slammed on the gas pedal.

They raced through the four-way stop into Athens. Mulder veered onto main street. Nothing. No one. Wang had disappeared, somewhere, in the tangle of suburban houses.

"We lost him. How did we lose him?" Mulder asked.

Scully shook her head. "Why don't we turn in there?" She pointed to a long, suburban street.

Mulder obeyed. He drove carefully now, his eyes glancing to the sides of the road, looking for Ruth's car. "Do you think he's got another hide-out place?"

"Maybe," Scully said. She couldn't think of anywhere else Wang could go. Still, she reminded herself, he knew this town. He had _chosen _Athens, Nebraska. "I don't know if we're going to find him." She found the words spilling from her mouth before she could stop them.

"We've got to," Mulder said. "He's getting more and more people under his control."

"We're wasting time doing this, Mulder."

"What else do you suggest we do?" Mulder kept his eyes on the road. He bit his cheek.

"Go back to the town hall and see if we can try to stop people from hurting themselves: break their hypnotism, get information from them and then come back out, better prepared."

"Scully, he could get away. He was only just ahead of us. We might need him to put this right. They're still all speaking Greek, remember."

"Well he's hidden himself well. We've got to lure him back."

"Lure him?" Mulder's voice was louder now, close to shouting. "How are we going to do that, Scully?" Mulder groaned. "He's gotten away since you started this conversation!"

"Calm down, Mulder." Her voice wavered as she struggled to keep it even pitched.

"We've got to find him. Why don't you want to try?"

"I'm being practical!" She shouted. "Like always. I'm saving your ass and I'm saving mine and I'm trying to salvage one train wreck of a situation after another!"

Mulder was nearly red faced now. He opened his mouth for a minute, closed it, and then scoffed. He began to drive down the street.

"Do you think I funny?" Scully wanted to hit him. She wanted to open the passenger door and roll away from him and let him patrol the stupid suburban block for hours.

"Maybe we don't work as well together as we thought. Maybe not anymore."

Scully felt her breath deflate, like someone had kicked it out of her. When she had first kissed him on New Years Eve, she had felt like someone had unified the sky and ocean on a perfect horizon line. She used to be afraid that she and Mulder would fall apart – that their connection would be severed.

She didn't feel severed. She felt hacked apart, as if little bits of him and her were interwoven together, but that they were ugly residuals. Pressure began to form in her face as she struggled to hold back tears.

"Scully?"

"It's alright, Mulder," she said. "You…just drive me back to town and keep looking for him. We can finish this case, at least."

"Scully, I…"

_I love you. I won't stop loving you. I don't know how to… _Scully stared out the windshield. "We're wasting time, Mulder," she whispered.

Mulder leaned back in his seat, brought his hands to his face, and held them there. Outside, on the empty street, a porch light blinked on and off.

Mulder brought his hands down again and started the engine. Scully chanced a glance at him. There were tears in his eyes.

XXX

Scully watched the light from the streetlights blur and bend past the car.

When Mulder pulled up to the front building, it looked deserted. "Motsouka got them all out," he said.

"Looks like it. I'm…impressed." She kept her eyes on the building.

"Me too." The urgent quest for Wang seemed to have drained out of him. He cleared his throat. "Should we check inside?"

Scully nodded and opened the door. They walked apart through the darkness to the entrance. She watched Mulder grasp the handle and jerk it, as if he were expecting to feel resistance. The door opened.

"Still got that flashlight?"

Scully pulled it from her pocket, turned it on, and angled the light inside on the cold, empty wood floor.

"Hello?" Mulder called. They walked inside. "Is anyone here?"

A furious knock and a growl rang out and echoed around them. Scully jumped. There were two voices – male voices – moaning.

Mulder took a step forward. "Hello?"

Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind them.


	21. Chapter 21

Scully raced to the door and heaved the from handle. "It's locked!" She heard the moans and knocks grow louder at the end of the hall.

Mulder tried the handle himself. It did not give.

"Shit!" He raised his hands above his head. "Fuck!"

"The windows from the back office," Scully said. "We could get out that way." They rushed down the hallway at the same time. Scully counted her lucky stars that the offices were in the opposite direction from where Ruth and Terbell were locked.

Mulder pulled on the door handle. "It's locked," he said. His voice sounded steady but high, the way it did when Mulder was starting to panic.

"How? Why? Wang couldn't possibly have been here."

Suddenly, they heard a knock from the other side of the door.

"H-hello?" Mulder asked.

The voice inside groaned. "δεσπότης," the voice called.

"Wang was chanting that, in the courtroom."

The voice growled and banged on the door.

"They locked up everyone who was hypnotized here, Scully. Or, at least the ones who were too far gone."

"Try the other doors." Scully was already trying the handle of the office next door. Mulder tried the door on the other side. It was almost like a strange dance, as they sashed from door to door.

"They're all locked." Scully said.

"Shit. How many people did they put here?" Mulder held his head in his hand, balancing his elbow with his other hand.

"We're…we're trapped, Mulder. We've got to contact Motsouka."

Mulder pulled out his cell phone and dialed the hotel's number. Scully heard the dial tone emitting from the phone. It rung, but no one picked up. After two minutes, Mulder ended the call. "Shit."

"We can try again in a little while," Scully said. "Maybe Tom is just away from his desk." Her explanation sounded hollow and false – almost bitter in her own mouth. She began to walk to the main entryway – as far away from the groans and moans of the trapped hypnotics as possible. She felt Mulder following her.

When she reached the main entrance, she turns to the right of the front door, and tried not look at Mulder. He sat down against the wall four feet from her. The force of their argument – momentarily forgotten by the bangs and groans – flooded back to her. She still wanted to crawl up at his side and snuggle next to him – at least part of her did. The other part of her was sinking. She was processing now, what his comment could mean. She had been afraid to reveal their relationship to others because she had, in part, been afraid of the consequences of breaking up. But, she realized, she had never _thought about _breaking up. She could not fathom life without Mulder. A passing memory of him with his hand at the small of her back, or how he smiled late a night, could remind her of what she had lost at any moment. She felt tears well up behind her eyes again and she tried to force them back. There was anger here, too. Why should she care so much about Mulder? Where was her selfhood?

The tears began to fall. She prayed the darkness will conceal them. Mulder was the most important person in her life. That he ran off without her – that he could leave her now – it made her feel like she's done something wrong – like she'd been born almost right, but not quite.

"Scully," Mulder said.

She grunted, keeping her head bent and staring at the wood floor.

"Scully…I…"

She didn't respond.

Mulder' voice cracked. He stood up suddenly, causing her to jump, and began to pace. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for how I treated you after the barbeque." She chanced a glance at him and caught his eye. He held her gaze for moment and then looked at his shoes. "I know this isn't the right time, but I can't…I'm sorry I went off on my own and left you to deal with Wang. I'm sorry I've punished you for being careful. I'm sorry I said we didn't work well together because it's probably the biggest lie I've had the audacity to believe in my entire life." He let out a dry laugh and she felt him staring at her. "But I know I'm not…I don't deserve…I don't make the effort I should. You deserve someone more secure, more…" He looked up. His were dark and wet.

"I.."

He a half step toward her and stands before her.

"I love you." She hiccupped. "And I'm so…afraid because I've spent my whole life working to be my own person and I know I would follow you…anywhere, or n-near anywhere if you asked me to go." She began to cry in heaving sobs. _What a terrible time to do this _a strange, detached part of her thought. Suddenly, she felt more panicked. Her priorities were slipping from her, coated in ugly slime.

Mulder's hand found hers. He faced her on his knees. She looked up and saw his face a foot from hers. His eyes look like they are searching her. She focused on them and felt herself begin to calm down. She raised her hand to his cheek.

He kissed her. His lips felt soft. She leaned up to him. He hugged her, wrapped his arms around her as they swayed from their knees on the cold, hardwood floor.

He pulled back. "I love you. I want…I want to deserve you."

She kissed him again, opening her mouth to him this time so that his tongue slid against hers and she moaned. She felt the salt of her dried tears tingle on her cheeks.

Mulder eased them to the floor and together they crawled to the far wall and leaned against it. He pulled his right arm from his coat and covered her with it. She nested next to him, her arms finding his waist.

The building was silent.

"Mulder," she whispered.

"Mmm?" He stroked her back.

"Do you think we can be together and work together?"

Mulder rested his head on top of hers. "Yes. I think we need to change – mostly me. But we can. You're my one, remember?"

She snuggled closer to him. "My one in five billion." She was heavy, now. Exhausted. None of their questions were answered – not really. Wang was still at large. They were still trapped inside the town hall. They couldn't talk to any of the townspeople. But Mulder held her. He'd convinced her. She wasn't losing him, or herself.


	22. Chapter 22

She woke up in an instant, her breath drawn from her and her hand already searching for her gun in her coat pocket. There had been nothing. And then a crash sound had shattered the stillness.

A second crash followed. Scully scrambled up. Mulder was already on his feet. Together, they heard someone groan. The sound of a fist banging against the door made her jump. Then: the scream. It spurred the others voices into action, filling the town hall with wailing and banging.

Mulder started to move toward the hall. Scully gripped his arm. "They can't get out," she told him and bit her lip, keeping her eyes trained on the empty doorframe entryway to the hallway.

"What's set them off?" Mulder said.

Scully heard shrieks now. She wanted to raise her hands and plug her ears, but she kept her right hand trained on her gun, and her left on Mulder.

"I – I don't know. I thought they'd fallen asleep," Mulder said.

The sound of fists hammering against the doors grew louder. "Mulder, what if they get out?"

Mulder grabbed his cell phone. "C'mon, Tom," he muttered, punching in the hotel's number.

The phone rang four times. Scully heard a door splinter. "Mulder get your…"

"Hello!" Mulder pressed the phone to his ear. "Tom! Help! Town Hall. Town Hall." He was shouting now. "Help!"

Scully heard another door groan. "We've got to hide!" She scanned the building. The room was completely empty of furniture.

"Now!" Mulder called into the phone before jamming it into his pocket. He took Scully's hand and pulled her across the room and to the right – closer to where the hypnotic was banging against the door.

Scully saw the wood at its bottom frayed. "Mulder…"

He was pulling her arm again and she found herself immersed in darkness. The smell of must filled her nose and she heard Mulder slam the door.

"I saw this broom closet just after we'd trapped Ruth and Terbell," Mulder whispered. She couldn't see him. His voice sounded like it was directly in front of her. "Don't worry. I've got the door handle. Keep your gun close."

She jumped when she heard a bang. One of the doors had given way. Slow heavy footsteps echoed as two bodies moved down the hallway. Another bang followed the first. Scully heard a groan. "Fuck. What about Tom?"

A deep voice rumbled a garbled sounding world. "άϕάνηϛ." Suddenly, the sound was everywhere, spoken slowly and slurred repeatedly. As abruptly as it had begun, it stopped. Scully could hear her own heartbeat in her ears.

Ages passed. She felt like she was breathing through a narrow straw, locked in a fish tank like the one in Mulder's dark apartment.

Like a shot they heard the deadbold turn in the lock at the front door. "H-hallo!" Tom's voice echoed down the hall and set off the bomb. Groans and bangs and feet dragging.

She knew, then, what they had to do. She pushed lightly on his back as Mulder, the same idea already formed in his head, opened the door. They beelined for the exit. Scully gripped her gun as she darted away from Mulder's side. She sidestepped a townswoman and ducked under Ruth's arms, barreling into the merciful light where she saw Tom standing with a hammer. He took off toward a car. _Ruth's car, _Scully realized. She saw Motsouka in the passenger's seat as she sprinted forward.

Tom opened the passenger door and she dove into the backseat. Looking back, she saw the hypnotics begin to approach, like zombies. They moved more quickly than zombies, though, and Scully realized that they must not have started moving to the car until now. She felt a mass in her throat and her pulse beat hard against her temples. Where was Mulder? She squinted in the fray of uncoordinated bodies, and tried to open the passenger door. Tom leaned his body against it. "

"Mulder!" She shouted and scampered across the backseat, climbing out the other side.

"Don't, Scully!" Motsouka said.

Scully ignored her. She raced around the front side of the car, gun still in hand. She saw the sweep of a large trench coat in the fray. Raising her gun, she fired.

XXX

Everyone froze, as if the sound of the gunpowder exploding in the air above them had sent shock waves through the crowd. Everyone, that is, except Mulder. By the time the hypnotics began to move, he was already sprinting toward the car. Scully scrambled into the backseat. When Mulder threw himself inside, the force of his body slammed against Scully shoulder. She looked up and saw Tom step into the driver's seat. They were speeding away an instant later, backing up with five feet between them and the angry hypnotics to spare.

Scully threw her arms around Mulder and buried her head in his shoulder. She didn't care if she looked needy or weak. She could still feel her pulse in her ears. She'd seen Mulder on the brink of death before, of course. But there were only so many near-death induced panics she could quell into submission. There hadn't been one of these situations yet, either, since they'd started having sex.

His arms were clinging to her too, now. Scully sighed in relief. She pulled back slowly, nestling herself in her seat next to him.

After a moment of silence, Motsouka spoke. "What happened?"

Mulder coughed. "We lost Wang. We came back to the town hall. Doors were open," he said.

"We heard voices," Scully added. She tucked her chin. Here, in this part of the story, they were reckless, she knew. "We entered and were trapped."

"Someone locked us in," Mulder said.

"Who?" Motsouka turned around from the passenger's seat to face them.

Mulder pursed his lips and shrugged.

"Do you think Wang followed us? Doubled back?" Scully said.

"If he did, he's gustier than I thought."

"The door shouldn't have been open in the first place," Motsouka said. "We locked it after we locked them all up. I made sure of it."

"Well someone else had a key," Scully said. "We need to figure out how the break the trance." She looked at Mulder. "Now would be a great time for your uncanny memory about past X-files. Is there one on hypnosis?"

Mulder nodded slowly. "A few. Hypnosis is a recorded phenomenon, so it's not really an X-file. Every time I've dealt with hypnotism, the person is called to wake up."

"Do you think you could convince Wang to wake them up?" Motsouka said. "Some kind of deal?"

"If we could figure out what he wants," Scully said.

Mulder was already shaking his head. "This is what he wants. This kind of control. He wants everyone under his command until he can prove himself to whoever he has captured."

"He has someone captured?" Motsouka unbuckled herself and turned all the way around in the chair. Tom pulled into the motel parking lot. "Are they okay?"

_Of course they're not okay, _Scully thought. "We think they're alive, whoever they are."

"I…" Motsouka's voice wavered. "I have a guess. I should have told you before."


	23. Chapter 23

"They were all rumors," Motsouka said. Tom had parked the car outside the main office and was watching them with a glazed look in his eye. Scully focused on Motsouka.

"Everyone thought that Wang and the Classics' chair had some sort of personal breakup. But I knew that wasn't true. I…I walked in on them one night. I was there late. I don't like to bring my work home." She looked down.

"Wang and the Classics' woman?" Scully said.

Motsouka shook her head. "She was married, the Classics' woman. He wasn't an academic. I didn't know who he was at the time but then when Wang was kicked to our department…Wang was with him."

"Her husband? He was dumped by her husband?"

"I think so. And then, Ruth…"

"He slept with Ruth?" Scully would have laughed at the horror forming on Mulder's face, if the situation hadn't been so serious.

"No! No, but Ruth knew too. He'd seen the same night I did, was coming down the hall in the opposite direction. He didn't mean any harm, but he liked to tease Wang about it. Wang had some weird ideas on how to teach language, and Ruth laughed him down every time – less because of the ideas, and more because he didn't respect Wang. Seeing Wang under some guy added fuel to Ruth's fire."

"So, calling Ruth here was a trap," Mulder said. "It still doesn't explain how he kidnapped the husband, or why the wife didn't report it."

"What if he didn't kidnap the husband?" Scully said.

"You saw, somebody was living like a caged dog in that old truck stop."

"He also has a helper, though, or how else could he come back and unlock the town hall?"

Tom cleared his throat. He tapped the window, pointing at the motel.

Exhaustion hit Scully like a sharp wind. "We've got to focus on breaking the trances," she said. "We should get inside, change, and meet back up in the lobby."

XXX

Scully heard a knock on her door just as she let her damp, wrinkled button-down slide off her shoulders. The fabric pooled at her elbows. "One minute," she called. She grimaced and tugged the shirt back onto her.

"It's me."

She ignored the buttons, walked to the door and opened it a crack.

Mulder stared at her. He was wearing a clean grey t-shirt and jeans she hadn't realized he'd packed. "Can I come in?" He whispered.

Scully pealed the door open and stepped aside. "Look, Mulder, I know this is pressing but I just need ten minutes to…"

She heard the door shut behind her. His hands were on her waist. She turned in his arms. He met her eye for confirmation before leaning in to kiss her. His lips felt warm and chapped. She pressed against his mouth and wrapped her hands around his back instinctually. They stood together. Scully found it hard to let go. As she broke the kiss, she rested her forehead against Mulder's and shut her eyes.

"I meant what I said. I'm sorry," Mulder said.

"I was scared for you Mulder – at the town hall. More scared than I used to get."

"I get scared too. I think about your abduction and…God Scully I just…"

"How can we…?"

"I don't know. But Scully…" he ran his hands up and down her back. "I want to try. You're the most important person in my life and maybe it's selfish but I want to try."

"I love you," she whispered.

Mulder lifted her chin with his finger and stared at her. "I love you too."

A knock on the door made Scully jump. "Guys?" Motsouka's voice called. "There's something you should see."

XXX

"How did the man fall asleep in ten minutes?" Scully asked, staring at Tom. He was leaned back in the front office's desk chair, his feet propped up. Scully's body was still buzzing. She could still feel Mulder's hands on her back.

"I don't think I've seen him sleep since I got here," Motsouka said. "When you two were gone, he kept trying to ask me questions about you."

Tom twitched in his sleep. He groaned. "όχι." The word seemed to dribble out from his nose. "όχι άκύειν."

Scully Mulder stared at him, as if he were a strange bug they had found on the playground.

"He's been calling out all these words and looking upset. I was going to wake him, but he seems to be fighting something," Motsouka said. "I thought maybe…" She looked unsure of herself.

"όχι άκύειν!" Tom's voice sounded loud and grainy.

"We should wake him," Scully said and leaned forward. She felt both Motsouka and Mulder's hands on her shoulders at the same time.

"He's refusing to do something," Motsouka said. "And…I think he's saying hear or listen. The word sounds similar to the modern one." She looked as if she was in a trance.

"Scully." Mulder's voice was low. "Do you know about lucid dreams?

"Dreams where the person is aware that they're dreaming," Scully said slowly. "Scientists have used EEG measurements to show that it begins in REM stage."

"There are reports of hypnotists who have tapped into lucid dreams." Mulder was speaking faster now, looking more excited. "They hypnotists can channel a new state of consciousness. What if that's what Wang is doing. He can control people by waiting until they are in REM state."

"Mulder, Tom can't be in REM sleep yet – he can't have been like this for more than fifteen minutes."

Mulder ignored her. He leaned down to Tom's ear. "Oxi akoús!" His voice sounded flat and nasal.

Tom didn't respond.

"Motsouka, could you tell him not to listen? Just say it in his ear."

Motsouka looked at Scully for confirmation. Scully closed her eyes a moment, opened them and nodded. Only then did Motsouka lean forward toward Tom and say "Min akoús, Tom."

Tom stirred and frowned in his sleep.

"όχι άκύειν," Motsouka tried.

Tom nodded. "όχι άκύειν."

"Now tell him to wake up. Don't touch him. Just tell him," Mulder said.

"Xýpna." Motsouka said. "xýpnios."

Tom's eyes fluttered open. He looked dazed for a moment and then snapped to attention. "οωϛ?" He stood up. "O-okay?"

Mulder nodded at him. "Okay." He looked back at Scully. She could tell he felt a little smug but was trying not to show it.

"So…" Scully said. "Somehow, Wang has accelerated the REM sleep of an entire town, and is now hypnotizing them through lucid dreams?"

Mulder pressed his lips together and shrugged.

"Mulder, that's crazy. Yes, scientists have shown that what you hear, and smell affects your dreams but nowhere to the point of mind control."

"Normally, I'd agree with Agent Scully," Motsouka said "But…"

Scully sighed.

"But that was one of the topics Wang wanted to research. Teaching language by trying to infiltrate dreams."

"So maybe he has. Maybe he's figured out how to combine hypnosis and a lucid dream state and he's rewired these people's realities. It makes sense, Scully."

"Even if – and I do mean if – Wang had connected hypnosis with unconsciousness, there's no proof. And once more it doesn't get us any closer to solving this problem here."

"What if we introduced English into the lucid dream state?" Motsouka said.

"Do you think that'll work?" Mulder asked.

"Well, It's common knowledge in the world of linguistics that an adult who learns a new language never really _forgets _their native one. Like, it's always in there. The neural circuits have been formed." Motsouka looked at Tom. "So, Tom here has English in his brain, somewhere. I don't think it would be too hard to trigger it…if that's how Wang is getting them to speak Greek."

Scully nodded. The entire plan seemed like the fringe of a lace blanket – superfluous and without pattern. But, then again, didn't most X-files leave her a little cold, like she was half-under a blanket of truth and half-exposed? "So, what do we do?"

"We try Tom again, when he's asleep and dreaming."

XXX

Tom was afraid of something – of that much, Scully was willing to bet He didn't want to fall back asleep. Motsouka communicated to Tom that they were all going to take a nap, and please would he, so that they could capture Wang that night. Under Mulder and Scully's sharp gazes, Tom had bitten his lip and given a curt nod.

Then, the three of them were forced to dawdle down the outdoor hallway to their rooms. As Scully opened the door to hers, she felt a familiar wave of exhaustion hit her. No, a cat nap wouldn't do any harm. She barely noticed Mulder behind her as she waved to Motsouka. They had agreed to meet in an hour – an excruciating hour of what seemed like lost time. Even still, Scully knew it was the best chance they had of getting Tom to fall back asleep.

Wandering toward the bed, she sank onto it. She felt Mulder's hands begin to massage her neck. "Mmm."

"I'm going to stop for a moment and take off your shoes for you," Mulder whispered.

She nodded, her cheek pushed against the pillow. "Thank you." Her voice came out low and gravely. It felt nice to have a forced resting time. It felt nice to have Mulder near here for it. Mulder. She sat up and looked at him. He smiled at her.

Motsouka knew, then. Did it matter? She hadn't seem surprised, waving to Scully. In fact, she had looked at them together like they were a natural pair. _We are natural together, _Scully thought.

Mulder kicked off his own shoes and scooted up on the bed. He reached over to the nightstand and set the alarm on the little motel clock. Then, he placed one hand over Scully and pulled her to him.

"Just forty minutes, okay?" He said.

Scully snuggled into his side.


	24. Chapter 24

She felt the soft grass of the meadow under her feet. She looked around through a purple haze, unsurprised and unalarmed. A hand fell on her shoulder and she turned. "Melissa?"

"Dana, you need to wake up again. He's coming."

"Who's coming?" Distantly, Scully heard the swish of grass against a pair of legs.

The timber of a man's voice slithered through the purple haze. "Dana. Άκύειν."

"Please, Dana." Melissa grabbed her shoulder. "You're dreaming. You need to wake up. You need to go back to Mulder and stop him."

"How Missy?"

The purple fog began to swallow Melissa. "Wake up." She said.

"Wait!"

"C'mon Scully."

The fog filled the meadow.

"C'mon."

Scully's eyes fluttered open. She sat straight up, as if she was filled with helium. Mulder's arms tightened around her right shoulder. He rubbed her back. "Are you okay?"

Scully felt tears welling up in her eyes. She steeled herself. "He almost had me, Mulder. I was in the same place as when Wang tried to hypnotize me." She caught her breath, surprised when Mulder's arms tugged her to him."

"Did you see Wang?"

Scully shook her head. "I just heard him." She paused. "Mulder. This happened last time, too. Melissa was there. She told me to wake up."

Mulder hugged her closer to his chest. She could hear his heartbeat against her ear.

Just as Scully turned her head to look at him, he spoke. "I don't understand the brain like I should," Mulder whispered. "There's a lot we _don't _know."

"She's dead, Mulder."

"I'm not saying she isn't. But your brain knew her for a long time. Your brain is protecting you from Wang, I think. Maybe she's a part of that, somehow."

Scully smiled. "Don't give me that 'she lives in me' bull."

She felt the vibrations of Mulder's chuckle above her. "I wouldn't dare, Scully." He cleared his throat. "I guess we have some more evidence now, though…"

Scully sat up. "You're right," she said. She glanced at the little wind-up alarm clock placed neatly on the bedside table. Only thirty minutes had passed. "I was in a dream state much faster than I should have been. Maybe, if Wang can get a victim under hypnotism voluntarily the first time, he triggers some sort of _tick_ in the brain."

"Sounds more like neuroscience than linguistics," Mulder said.

Scully laughed. "You're right. You know, I bet if we could get our hands on a computer in this little town, we could find out how much _he_ knows about neuroscience."

Mulder leaned forward and looked over her shoulder at the time. He sighed. "We've got to get down there and see what we can do about Tom."

XXX

Tom's head lulled on the chair. His eyes were shut gently, and his mouth was open. Scully thanked God. He had seemed so agitated on waking up, she expected to find him tired, confused and alert when they returned.

"How should we do this?" Mulder whispered.

"I think we should get him to respond to something – some verbal stimulus," Motsouka said. "Then, we can introduce more and more English. We can't wake him up, though." She bit her lip.

Mulder and Scully nodded together.

"Should I…who should talk?" Motsouka said.

"I think you're best qualified," Mulder said. The omission surprised Scully. Mulder liked to control the interrogation in whatever form it took. "Just talk with a quiet, monotone voice. That's generally how hypnotism is delivered.

"Tom," Motsouka murmured. "Shh. Tom."

Tom stirred.

"Tom. Hello. It's Maria. Hear me."

Tom groaned. He squinted in his sleep.

"You speak English, Tom." Motsouka looked at Mulder and Scully. Mulder gave her a thumbs-up. "You speak English. You're going to listen to me and not Professor Wang. Do you hear him right now?"

Tom nodded. He groaned again.

"Ignore his voice. You were raised with English. You are going to wake up and speak English."

"E-English…" Tom said.

"Yes, Tom. I'm going to count to three. On three, you're going to wake up out of your trance."

"Y-yes…"

"One. Two. Three."

Tom's eyes flew open. Scully held her breath. "Χαίρετε?"

Scully sighed. "Not English."

"English." Tom blinked again. "Yes. English. I-I…" he squinted as if he had a headache. "I can speak in English."

"Yes!" Motsouka said. She was grinning.

"I can speak to you." Tom looked at them. He grinned. "I can…your words always sounded so familiar, but I never understood what you were saying. But I've…remembered I somehow got away from the voice."

"What was the voice saying?" Mulder asked.

"He…I don't know, now. He was talking in some wobbly language. I think I did know it, in the dream." Tom laughed. "It was that Professor, though. He's behind it. The whole town knows. We thought for a while that you might be, too, but then again, you could also be a victim. But then word got around that you helped a little boy. That you tried talking to us." He pointed at Scully and Motsouka. "Wang didn't like that, I remember. He found out, somehow."

"How?" Mulder was leaning forward now, across the desk.

"He…drips into your thoughts. He gets you to start being his way. I think he got to those people we had to lock in Town Hall – got to them more then to us." Tom laughed and his eyebrows creased. "English! I remember looking at those English signs around the motel and knowing I'd lost something to do with it."

"We don't need Wang," Scully said. "Look, if we can get people to sleep, we can influence their lucid dreams, too. The question is, how will we do that for the whole town?"

"How did you meet Wang, Tom?"

"We got word from the mayor that a visitor was in town who was going to give an important talk about the town's future. If he'd said it was a professor visiting, no one would have come. But the mayor didn't specify who it was – just said it would change everything. He could have been hypnotized too, come to think of it. I never heard him speak himself…just through the grapevine."

"Surely everyone couldn't have come to a meeting?"

Wang shook his head. "I didn't…I went to a small businesses' meeting where I was promised a tax break. There was a PTA meeting, a farmer's meeting…"

"What happened at your meeting?"

"He wanted us to concentrate, or was it meditate? Yes! Meditate. We all thought he was crazy, but we played along anyway. Then, he said there would be a second meeting and more tax breaks with a partner. We went to that one, too. She did the same thing."

"A partner?" Scully said. "She?"

Tom nodded. They did different talks every day for a week. One afternoon, I feel asleep and woke up and the postman didn't speak like me. Then, a few hours later, he did. I – I can't explain it."

"Wang didn't lock us in Town Hall, Mulder. His partner did." Scully ran her hands through her hair.

"What did she look like, Tom?" Motsouka asked.

"Tall. Skinny. Brown hair. Forties."

"What is it, Motsouka?" Scully asked.

Motsouka bit her lip. "It's a guess…a big one. But I think. Damnit." She laughed. "It sounds like the Classics' department's chair."


	25. Chapter 25

"What about her husband?" Scully felt a little silly asking.

"Scully, he's probably the one locked up."

Scully surveyed Mulder. "So, both Wang and this classics' woman are upset with the classics' woman's husband. So they plan retaliation together? Mulder, they probably don't want to be near each other!"

"But if Motsouka's right, it's the only explanation. The husband has hurt them both."

"Ruth, too," Motsouka added.

Mulder nodded his head. "See?"

"How did Ruth hurt the classics' chair?" Scully asked.

"You've met the man," Motsouka said. "Wang seems sensitive."

Scully nodded despite her doubt. "Okay. Even _if _Wang's accomplice is this classics' woman and they have her husband locked up, how does that information help us stop this? We still need to infiltrate the dreams of the entire town."

Scully saw Tom fight and fail to suppress a smile. "How about a town meeting?"

XXX

They repurposed the flier that Motsouka had found at the park, adding only the date, time and a picture of the motel. Tom used an outdated copy machine behind his desk to make several copies. Scully and Mulder's car was still park at the Town Hall, forgotten in their escape. Tom dropped them off next to it, and they split up to distribute the fliers.

In twos, they canvassed the neighborhood. They had agreed to leave fliers under doors, rather than confront each family like old-time salesmen.

Scully felt Mulder's light touch on her lower back as they walked off another front porch. She looked up at him and smiled. They had cemented the cracks in their relationship with putty – still with no consensus on whether they should announce their relationship at work. But even so, at the very least, she had him at that moment.

XXX

The red rays of sunset stretched through the dirty window into the motel's lobby office, bringing with them a stiff silence. Tom stood just outside the building, facing the parking lot, one hand shielding his eyes. Motsouka leaned on Tom's desk, studying original flier from the park. Scully glanced at Mulder, who was twiddling his thumbs next to her as they leaned on the opposite wall. She stepped closer to him and bumped his long arm. He glanced at her. She smiled, reached out, and took his hand.

A motor rumbled, and Mulder squeezed Scully's fingers. All four of them watched as cars began to enter one by one, like a poorly timed procession.

"Ready?"

Scully nodded.

The people approached like they expected the motel to jump forward and attack them. Scully took a deep breath, reminding herself that this briefing was similar to one at the FBI. There would be a lot of people who needed convincing – a lot of people who weren't sure they could trust her.

Tom had located folding chairs in a storage shed, and the four of them had set them up in the parking lot outside the office. People began taking their seats. Mulder, Scully and Motsouka nodded at one another and strode outside, joining Tom.

Several times, men waved to Tom and spoke to him. Tom smiled each time. People began to stand in the back, behind the folding chairs. And to think, Scully thought, that they were afraid no one would show.

The sun disappeared and the sky turned yellow like a bruise. The oncoming darkness seemed to still the crowd. Motsouka cleared her throat. "Geiá sou!"

The crowd stared at her.

"γόης. Κακό." Motsouka called. Her voice cracked. She looked at Scully. Scully met her eyes and then directed her gaze to the crowd. They looked concerned.

"Ummm." Motsouka closed her eyes. "Diorthónoume."

The townspeople looked from one to another. A man in a cowboy hat shouted a string of syllables. When none of them reacted, he added "Tom?"

"Voítheia," Motsouka tried, and pointed to herself. This word produced a nod. She muttered to them, "pretend to be sleeping."

Scully felt a little silly as she mimed sleep. She waited ten seconds before opening her eyes. Motsouka was still pointing at the crowd. They looked bewildered. She felt Mulder's grip on her arm at the sound of a motor. A black car appeared in the parking lot.


	26. Chapter 26

Scully clutched her gun. She watched the black car pull up to where she, Motsouka and Mulder stood. It stopped twenty feet in front of them. Suddenly, the back door open and a skinny man stumbled from the backseat. His hands were tied with crude rope.

Scully raised her gun. "Stay still!"

The man coughed and fell onto his knees. "Don't hurt me! I just. James says you need to listen to him. They've…they've got a gun with them."

"Wang, come out with your hands up. Your accomplice, as well." Mulder shouted. His gun was pointed at the car along with Scully's.

"Please don't shoot." The man began to cry. "He's aiming at me."

"Tell them to exit the car now, and we'll talk." Scully said.

The man turned back and said something to Wang and the other person in the front seat. "He says to put the gun down first. Both of you."

"Tell him to toss his weapon or weapons outside the car. Then we'll put the gun down."

Scully caught her breath. Then, she saw a hand toss the gun out the open back door with a loud clunk.

"What if they have more?" Motsouka whispered.

Scully shook her head. She was afraid of the same thing. FBI protocol stated that neither she nor Mulder were to drop their weapons unless in an extreme circumstance. She damn well hoped this standoff made the cut. She wanted to run to the skinny man, who was pale and bruised, looking on the verge of collapse. "Mulder," she whispered.

Mulder was still clutching his gun and aiming it at the car. He grimaced and then, very slowly, lowered himself and placed his gun on the ground in front of him, never taking his eyes off the car. "Come out of the car, Wang," he called.

The car's motor stopped running. Scully watched the car's driver side door creep open. Wang stood leaning on the door.

"Your accomplice, too," Scully said.

"άκόύειν," Wang said. His voice was loud, but he sounded serene as he began to chant. "άκόύειν. άκόύειν."

"No!" Scully called. She glanced at her gun. Mulder put his hand on her arm.

"Motsouka was right. The accomplice has a weapon, too." he said, squinting.

Scully began to feel light-headed and she wanted to close her eyes. She forced herself to keep them open and covered her ears with her hands. "Mulder, it's working."

"Hey!" Mulder shouted, looking around him. He raised his hands to his ears and then swooped his arms around, doing it again. A smattering of townspeople copied him.

Suddenly, Wang's chanting stopped. Scully turned and saw Tom tackle Wang. A bang went off. Someone screamed. Scully raced toward the car, fixated on the blossom of blood growing on the man's arm.

"Stop moving!" A voice shouted. The woman had her gun pointed at the bound man's head. Scully felt Mulder catch up to her. He had his gun extended.

He raised his gun. "Drop your weapon now."

"I'll shoot again. I'm warning you."

"Is he worth this to both of you?"

The woman was crying now.

"C'mon," Mulder said. "Put the gun down, and I'll put mine down. We don't want anyone to die today. This isn't how to get what you want. This isn't how to get revenge."

"Don't listen to him, Eleanor!" Wang shouted from the ground, where Tom held him.

Shouts ricocheted through the crowd. Scully glanced up. Ruth, Terbell and a smattering of other bodies trundled from the edge of the parking lot toward them. "Shit," she muttered. She wanted to get to the injured man, but the townspeople looked like deer in the wide headlight of a heavy locomotive rolling toward them. She had less than a minute to calm them down – to beat their panic. Still, she couldn't scare the woman with the gun.

She began to walk backwards slowly toward the crowd with her hands raised. "I'm just going to help them," she said. "I'm just going to make sure there isn't panic."

The woman didn't hear her. She was still crying – still staring at Mulder as if asking for permission to explode.

Scully began to walk more quickly.

"Did you hear her?" Mulder asked with his eerie-calm voice: the voice he used to talk to all crazy gunmen in this past. _Jesus, there had been so many crazy gunmen. _

"Yes," the woman said.

Wang began his chant again from the ground. Scully jogged to the group and flung open the motel office door. "Inside!" She shouted and pointed.

The townspeople reacted immediately, running in, pressing themselves through the door. Scully forced them to enter one by one. The slow, hypnotized zombies moved closer. She looked inside the office. People were pressed into all available space, bodies spilling into area behind the front desk. The space was full, but there were more townspeople waiting outside.

Scully found Motsouka in the crowd, trying to line people up so they didn't stampede the office entrance. "Maria!" She shouted. Motsouka looked up. She threw Motsouka her room key. "Take the rest of them to my room and your room. Just get them inside and safe!"

Motsouka waved her arms and began to jog down the outdoor corridor to Scully's room. Scully looked back at Mulder. He was still at a standstill with the woman and the gun. Scully looked inside the crowded office and made eye contact with an old man standing by the door. She pointed back to the car and then shut the door soundly, praying everyone inside had enough sense to stay there. Ruth, Terbell and the hypnotics were close now. She jogged toward Mulder, keeping her hands raised high in the air.

"You can help us fix things. No one has to get hurt," Mulder was saying. Wang was still chanting, but his words had a different rhythm.

The woman shook her head. "It's too late, now. There's no way back."

"There's always a way back."

Wang's voice grew louder. He began to thrash at Tom. Tom struggled to keep him on the ground. He looked up with a red face and wide eyes.

"Ellie. Please. I'm so sorry. Just…"

Scully glanced over her shoulder and saw Ruth grinning at her, not ten feet away.


	27. Chapter 27

"Ellie." The man on the ground's voice was so low and gravely that it sounded like it came from his stomach. "Other people could get hurt. There are children in there."

"Don't you dare," Ellie said. "Don't you dare use children against me – not when you told me you never wanted them."

"He took a lot from you," Scully said. She was surprised by how calm her voice sounded, even as she caught her breath. The woman met Scully's eyes. "This isn't just about him anymore. But if you shoot him, you make it all about him again."

This wasn't true, Scully thought. Even if the woman shot, the situation wasn't totally about them. She held the woman's gaze anyway. The seconds pumped by like the sound of a heartbeat. One. Two. Three.

Scully sighed as the woman lowered the gun.

"Scully!" Mulder shouted.

Scully felt someone squeeze her arm. She looked up and saw the round center of Ruth's dazed face. The sound of a gun firing made her jolt back. Ruth's grip slackened in surprise and she slipped from his grasp. She lunged backward and looked in the direction of the shot. The woman – Eleanor – was still holding the gun out.

The other hypnotics looked unphased, but they had stopped moving. Wang, still pinned to the ground, began to screech.

"Get in the car," Eleanor said. She jerked her husband upward and forced him into the back seat. He whined.

Scully ran forward and slid into the back seat behind him to check the gunshot wound. Eleanor slammed the door behind her. A moment later, she heard the driver's door slam. Mulder started the engine. Eleanor dove through the other back side door, jostling her husband again. That left Tom for the passenger side. The hypnotics had begun to blunder toward him. Scully saw Tom look at the door and then at the townspeople – his people – coming toward him. Then, he leapt like a wildcat toward the car, shoving Wang down and flinging the passenger side open. When he slammed it shut, the car's entire frame rattled. Mulder began to drive.

"Mulder, we need to get this man to a hospital," Scully called. She thought of the townspeople, crowded inside the motel. "Motsouka…"

"Do you think he can hang on until we make sure they're safe? The townspeople?" Mulder called. He was driving around to the motel's back side.

Scully looked at the man's shoulder. She could stop the bleeding – she was sure – but she wouldn't be able to remove the bullet without proper equipment. She pulled off her jacket and wadded it. "This might hurt," she told him. She raised her voice and called to Mulder. "I'm going to compress the wound. I think I can get the bleeding to stop, but he needs surgery."

Eleanor was staring at her husband, her eyes glazed.

"How do we help everyone inside?" Tom asked. "What if the professor hypnotizes them, too?"

"Is there a way to get them all out?" Scully asked.

"I've got to talk down Wang," Mulder said. He pulled behind the building and looked back at the front parking lot.

"You can't if we've got a bunch of people ready to block you, Mulder. Especially if he gets more people under." Scully bit her lip. The man under her groaned.

"If there's another signal going on, the mind doesn't focus correctly." Eleanor's voice was quiet and flat, as if she was reluctantly offering the answer in a lecture she didn't want to teach.

"What?" Tom asked.

"If you can play something loud enough to distract the brain, he won't get to them. Use the car." Eleanor was still staring at her husband. He locked eyes with her but did not speak.

"Roll your windows down," Mulder instructed. Scully removed her from the man's shoulder man's shoulder and reached over awkwardly to turn the little handle. Without warning, Mulder punched the radio button and spun the dial to loud. Static exploded from the car. Mulder played with the dial and he back the car around. Finally, he snatched a clear signal, blasting ACDC. Again, he drove to the motel's front parking lot and Scully thought it was almost funny – their circularity. She returned her hand to its spot over the injured man's wound. As Mulder pulled up alongside the front office, Wang came into view. Two large hypnotized men flanked him as he limped toward the front door. The rest of them followed.

"Slowest stampede ever," Mulder shouted over the music. Scully suppressed a smile.

Suddenly, the hypnotics stopped their slow march. One rose his hands to his head and threaded his fingers through his fine, white hair. Another groaned. Scully watched as each of them tried to cover their ears.

Wang from right to left, and then right again. He began to shout. Scully couldn't hear what he was saying over the words. The hypnotics began to sit down on the pavement, covering their ears with their palms and putting their head between their knees, or curling into little balls. She felt someone tug on the bottom of her shirt.

"Can you leave him?" Mulder yelled. He pointed at the bleeding man.

Scully reached across the man and grabbed the woman's arm. She forced it to compress the man's wound. "Stay here!" Then, she looked back at Mulder and nodded.

They stepped out of the car at the same time. Mulder was faster getting to Wang. He reached around the man and pined his arms as he were about to cuff him.

Wang thrashed. "άκούειν!" He screeched.

The hypnotics remained on the ground.

Scully marched toward Wang and stopped near his face. "You've got to fix this." She clenched her jaw. "Hurting these people won't make you feel any better."

Wang glowered at her. Scully saw him curl his lip. Something hot and slimy struck her cheek. She pulled a hand up to find Wang's spit.

From the corner of her eye she saw the black but of Mulder's gun hit the back of Wang's head. He collapsed. In Mulder's arm.

"Mulder!"

Mulder was securing his gun back in his pocket. He laid Wang on the pavement and stepped over him. "Scully." He pulled up his t-shirt and used it to wipe the saliva from her face.

"You shouldn't have done that."

"He shouldn't have spit on you." Mulder's face was red. He took a deep breath. "He'll be fine. Help me get him in the car. Do you think we can leave Tom here to help Motsouka?"

"We need to get the husband help, Mulder. The bullet is lodged deep scapula."

"Leave them here," Tom said. "With me. I'll get someone inside to bring him to a hospital, and she's better off away from Wang. I have a radio inside. I can play some music."

Scully looked at Mulder, reading his eyes for response. "If we keep her cuffed…"

Mulder nodded.


	28. Chapter 28

Scully sat in the back seat with Wang's head on her lap. His arms were cuffed and resting on his stomach. His eyes were closed. He looked relaxed. Scully felt guilt start low in her gut. Would the man get medical help? Would Tom's music be loud enough to stop the hypnotics, if they were still programmed to attack? Would Eleanor, the woman attack? They had practically stock-piled liabilities into a tower that could topple at any time.

Mulder drove toward Town Hall, where they would isolate Wang. With any luck, he'd regain conscious in one of the little offices, tied to a chair. Scully rode in the back, just in case he roused early.

"Did you see how she was stroking his hair?" Mulder said.

Scully looked into the rearview mirror. "Who?"

"Eleanor. She was stroking her husband's hair. She regretted shooting him."

Scully didn't respond.

"God, Scully. What happened to their marriage? How can a relationship sour like that?"

"He was cheating on her Mulder. With a man."

"That doesn't mean they didn't love each other in some form. People's emotions run high because they care."

Scully sighed. "What's your point, Mulder?"

"Were you – are you afraid we're going to sour like that? Is that why you don't want to tell anyone about us?"

Scully almost laughed. "Do you have something to tell me, Mulder? Are you in love with A.D. Skinner?"

"Be serious, Scully."

Scully sighed. "I wasn't lying before. I'm afraid sometimes. If things go bad, I don't know how I'd recover. Telling everyone, making it official…"

He looked back at her again from the rearview mirror.

"And…you know…it's always worse for the woman at work."

"I know." Mulder's voice was barely perceptible over the hum of the motor. "You could do a lot better than me. I guess I'm afraid, too, that you'll leave. Hell -" he grimaced. "I don't know if I'd be any less crazy than Eleanor if you did."

"Mulder." She extended her hand toward him. He reached on back and they interlaced their fingers. "I choose you." She leaned back and readjusted Wang on her lap. "Can you believe in that, along with your aliens?"

Mulder's pursed lips relaxed. He grinned. "You know me, Scully. I'm a believer."

XXX

When Wang came to, Scully was pressed into Mulder's side and leaning against a wooden desk on the opposite wall. The wait had been a long one. With rope they had found in the car, they had secured him to a wooden chair in a large, town hall office nearly an hour ago.

Wang's faced was red. He scowled as he looked around the office. When he saw Mulder and Scully, his lip curled. "Mr. and Mrs. FBI are here to rough up the bad guy?"

"It's over," Mulder said.

"Oh, I don't think so. You've still got a town full of people who can't communicate with the outside world. They'll get confused and afraid when the camera crews come here to cover this freak show." He sniffed. "I wasn't kidding when I said they could be hostile."

Scully cleared her throat. "James, people are being de-hypnotized as we speak." Mulder had taught Scully that addressing a criminal by his first name established a dynamic where the interviewer held control. It was almost intimate, he had said. Some criminals will relax.

"You're lying." Wang said. He looked like a child in trouble at school. _Certainly not relaxed, _Scully noted.

Wang's gaze shifted back to Mulder. Mulder only smiled at him.

"You bastard." Wang struggled for a moment in the chair and then gave up. "You waltz around getting everything you want, breaking rules, sleeping with your pretty partner and face not a single consequence."

"Excuse me," Scully said. "His pretty partner is right here."

"I get one shriveled ounce of happiness and it's ripped from me and mocked." Wang chucked. "But hey – you'll know how I feel when she leaves you."

"That's what this is about," Scully said. "He left you. He made you feel ashamed."

Wang pressed his lips together into a thin, hard line.

"How much convincing did Eleanor need to agree to help you?" Mulder asked from behind her.

"No convincing." Wang's voice wavered and hitched. Scully stared at him. A bead of sweat was beginning to form on his brow.

"He was going to go back to her, wasn't he?" Scully whispered.

Wang's eyes widened for a moment. He hung his head and nodded. It took a moment for Scully to realize that he had begun to mutter again – Greek words. She clamped her hands over her ears and began to back away. She felt Mulder stand behind her and put his hand around her waist.

"You'll tire yourself out," Mulder said, loudly enough for Scully to hear. Wang looked at them again, standing together, and began to cry.


	29. Chapter 29

Wang choked on his own sobs. Scully lowered her arms. His face was red, and fat alligator tears were streaming down both of his cheeks.

Suddenly, the telephone on the office desk rang. Mulder moved from out behind Scully, met her eyes, and then picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

Scully moved toward the phone to hear the speaker on the other end of the line. "Agent Mulder? It's Motsouka. The hypnotic trances – they just broke."

Scully looked back at Wang. His crying must have sucked too much of his focus away from commanding the hypnotized people.

"Are they speaking English?" Mulder asked.

"Tom and I have managed five people."

Mulder's face fell. "That's a start."

"Motsouka, did you get the man to the hospital? The one that was shot."

"The first two townspeople took him. Apparently, there's a surgeon on staff for gunshot wounds. They happen a lot here."

"So, you have three English speakers with you." Mulder said.

"And the woman here – the one you have cuffed."

"Right."

"She, uh, she says she thinks he can help make it go faster. But I'm afraid to let her try in case she makes it worse."

Mulder and Scully looked at one another, as if asking the same question. "Can we talk to her?" Mulder asked.

The line was silent. A moment later, they heard Eleanor. "H-hello?"

"Eleanor, this is Agent Mulder."

"I know who you are."

"Eleanor, did you know your husband was coming back to you?"

"What?"

"He was coming back to be with you," Mulder said. "He was going to apologize. Professor Wang just admitted as much."

Eleanor's voice rose an octave. "I – I don't believe you."

"You can ask him later."

"Let me talk to your partner," Eleanor said.

Mulder handed Scully the phone without hesitation. He bit his lip, and leaned in to hear.

"Eleanor," Scully said.

"I didn't just lose my husband. I lost the respect of my department." Scully could hear Eleanor breathing heavily on the other end of the line. "You might understand that. So, tell me, is it true?"

Scully's mouth opened momentarily before she remembered that hesitation could cause Eleanor to think Mulder was lying. "Wang admitted that your husband planned to go back to you and apologize. That was why he decided hypnotize this town."

"He was coming back." Eleanor said. Her voice was loud and clear over the line, but she sounded distant. "I shot him."

Scully knew that now was not the time to question Eleanor about the strength of her relationship with her cheating husband. "Eleanor. You said you could help get people back to speaking English."

"What?" Wang's sobs had stopped. He stared at Scully.

"Yes," Eleanor said. "I can't hypnotize like James, but I know how to accelerate Motsouka's method. You just need to get everyone in a room and get them calm, with their eyes closed…"

"Shut up, you bitch!" Wang strained against the rope. Mulder approached Wang and cocked his gun.

"Eleanor." Scully said. "Listen to me carefully. If you're lying to me, I'm going to make sure you are held accountable for the attempted murder of your husband."

"If I do this, I want immunity," Eleanor said.

Scully scowled. "Hand Motsouka the phone."

XXX

Scully's eyes narrowed at Wang. She felt cut off. It was so rare that they were away from the action on a case. She glanced at the receiver again, silently willing Tom or Motsouka, or _anyone _to call her with good news. Eleanor better have done what she said she could…she better not have lied. They shouldn't have trusted her.

Mulder's hands came to the back of her neck and began to massage the muscles at the top of her back. She hummed.

Wang had failed twice, again, to hypnotize Scully. He'd muttered a Greek chant to no one in particular, too, before Mulder threatened to bound his mouth. Mostly, though, he looked defeated. When he looked at her and Mulder standing together, she almost felt sorry for him.

"Aren't there rules against you two dating?" He asked.

"It's discouraged," Scully said. She tensed a little, realizing she hadn't even thought about ignoring his question.

"But you do it anyway."

"We do what's good for both of us," Mulder said. "Not that it's any of your business."

"We're a team," Scully said, and leaned back into Mulder to remind him – if he hadn't figured it out – that she was talking to him. "We work better together. I'm not going to hide that."

Mulder grinned at her.

"I wanted someone like that," Wang said to Scully.

"It's not too late to help set things right."

"I can't..."

They heard a knock on the office door.

"Yes?" Mulder called and swallowed.

"Hello? Agents Scully and Mulder?" The door opened slowly. A man Scully recognized – the man from the barbeque – smiled. "It's nice to get the chance to chat with you."


	30. Chapter 30

_Two Months Later, D.C._

Scully stepped into the elevator with a stack full of mail. Up in her apartment, Mulder was stirring soup in her mother's old stock pot. She smiled at the thought of him standing over her stove in her pink apron. _Gotta look the part, Scully. _

A postcard slid out from between two envelops. She picked it up. A laminated, glossy photo of the Aegean Sea caught the elevator's light. She turned the postcard over. The elevator dinged.

"Anything good?" Mulder asked when she closed the door to her apartment.

"We got a postcard from Motsouka. She went to Greece with her girlfriend." She held up the card.

Mulder squinted at it. "Greece, huh? I think we got the short end of the stick, Scully, if _that's _where Greek is normally spoken."

"Mmm." She laid down the rest of her mail on the counter and tacked it on her refrigerator with a magnet. Then, she went over to Mulder and wrapped her arms around his waist. "How's it coming?"

Mulder took a spoon and blew on the hot soup. He turned and held it out to her. She sipped. "Tastes homey."

Mulder leaned down and kissed her, sucking gently on her top lip. She groaned a little when he pulled away. "Yep. Definitely homey." He looked a little flushed from standing over the stove. He smiled at her. Scully cuddled next to him. She felt soft and at peace. There was so much language here, in how they held each other. So much language and no words.

The end ?


End file.
